Kage: The Shadow

by John Donohue

  My countering thrust was as hard and focused as I could make it. The point of my sword was driven by explosive movement generated from the hips. It was a technique of full commitment; its goal was to have the opponent choking on a blade that skewered the neck. The thrust known as tsuki has been known to make the strongest swordsman flinch. I gave it everything I had.

  In the final instant before my sword tip could make contact, Yamashita’s body shot to one side as if it were being yanked along a wire. My momentum carried me forward and he prepared for the final, killing blow.

  I spun around to face him, dropping to one knee. My sword was held horizontally out above my head, my left hand supporting the blade in anticipation of the final blow that would end the kata.

  CRACK! It came, as focused and powerful as I expected. I steeled myself into immobility as was required. Some people think that martial artists only study movement. They are wrong. We study control, and it takes a variety of forms.

  The two of us remained frozen for an instant, our eyes locked. Finally, my teacher relented. His blade came away and he stepped back.

  “So…” he said in the musing, sibilant way the Japanese have. Then he bowed and I bowed back. I noticed that his shaven head was dappled with oily perspiration.

  We had reversed roles for the demonstration, a slight and imperceptible concession to our changing condition. Age and wounds pulled at my teacher, and sometimes when the dojo was empty but for the two of us, you could see him struggle against the bonds that time had wrapped around him. But in a demonstration like this, he could, for a time, summon the old fire, and he moved with all the crisp force of a blade singing through the air.

  I gave a command, and the circle of students kneeling in a watchful circle paired off to emulate the form we had just demonstrated. Then we walked the room’s perimeter, my teacher and I, watching a new generation struggle along the path toward mastery that we had pointed out for them.

  Yamashita’s voice was low, a murmur as we made our rounds and the walls rang out with the clack and stamp of the kata.

  “It is good that you are back, Professor,” he told me.

  “Nice to be missed,” I said. We glided along the hardwood floor, our eyes baleful, alert. I saw Sarah working hard with another woman to get the timing of the attack just right.

  Yamashita saw the direction of my gaze. “Some, I think, missed you more than others,” he said with a faint smile. Then his face grew stern. “The consulting work you are doing… it is a distraction.”

  “It is a minor thing…”

  But he waved me to silence with a chop of his hand. “The dojo needs you, Burke. All this other activity…” Yamashita was silent for moment, and I could tell that it was not merely annoyance that was giving him pause. His next words were slow and halting, as if they were difficult to say. “I can still work with them, Burke, but you supply…” He paused once more to find the right word.

  I knew then what he was getting at. And how hard it was to admit, even to me, that the years and damage were slowly dragging him down. I swallowed and made my voice light. “What? A little dash?” I suggested teasingly. “A hint of roguish danger?”

  Yamashita has gotten use to my sarcasm over the years, as I have come to finally note and appreciate his own odd, dry humor. But we both knew what I was doing now. He looked at me and shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something else, but his eyes suddenly narrowed, and all that came from him was a soft hiss.

  “I see it,” I told him, and headed over to correct a student’s technique. Each person in the room except for Yamashita dropped to one knee as I explained what needed to be changed. When I was done, the students bowed and sprang back up for more training. It’s part of the old style of etiquette. Like most things in the martial arts, it’s got more than one purpose. It reinforces good manners and lets the entire group see what’s going on, of course. But all that bobbing up and down also builds strong leg muscles. The old masters were nothing if not wily.

  Yamashita and I resumed our walk, our heads swiveling watchfully while we spoke without looking at each other, relieved that the pull of the moment had distracted us from more troubling things.

  “Do you know when I first sensed that you would make a good pupil, Burke?” he asked me. I shook my head and my sensei continued. “It was during the first months of training. You were working with Komura-san.”

  Komura. He was a fairly high-level executive with Sumitomo, a thick, stolid swordsman who spent his days at the office repressing rage and the evenings venting it in dojo all across Manhattan. He was notorious among the junior students: a guy who never said much, carefully folded his pin stripe suits in the dressing room, and emerged onto the training floor with a curt bow and a murderous gleam in his eye. Some of us thought he was a psychopath. For his part, Yamashita seemed to enjoy having Komura around and used him to test the mettle of students.

  Yamashita described for me the match he had observed so many years ago. I had a vague recollection of sparring any number of times with Komura, but who cherishes unpleasant memories?

  “You had been here long enough to know what you did not know,” Yamashita reminded me with an approving tone. I could remember those days: the sense of something akin to despair when, after almost a decade of training in judo and karate, I had entered the blast furnace of training in Yamashita’s dojo. The black belts I had achieved were revealed as virtually useless: they merely served to get me in the door of his school. Where I was left completely unprepared and virtually defenseless.

  I nodded slowly as I thought back. “I remember one time when Komura hammered me pretty good,” I said.

  “Indeed. I told him to,” my teacher said with satisfaction. “You had been working diligently to master the basic forms, but there is nothing like working with an opponent.”

  “The guy was a lunatic,” I reminded Yamashita.

  He pursed his lips as if suppressing a smile. “Komura’s faults were also his strengths,” Yamashita mused. “His technique was good, very good… and more to my purpose on that night, it was not tempered with mercy.”

  It was coming back to me. Yamashita had paired me with Komura, and we went through a seemingly endless series of parrying drills designed to teach me proper blocking and the consequences of improper technique. I squinted into the past and remembered the sweat and frustration as, seriously overmatched, I furiously attempted to avoid the slashing blows of Komura’s wooden sword. He came at me like a machine, flat eyed and pitiless. By the end of the session, I had welts all over my forearms and sides.

  I sensed Yamashita looking at me. “You remember now, I think,” he commented.

  “Oh yeah,” I acknowledged.

  “And do you know why that event made an impression on me, Professor?”

  “Because I would take a beating and still come back for more?” I asked.

  Yamashita cocked his head. “Endurance is a good thing for a warrior to have, certainly. But no. At one point, just at the end of the night, Komura had pushed you to your limit. And I saw you set yourself and try, one last time. In fact, you went on the offensive.”

  “I was pretty steamed,” I told him.

  “Indeed. You were supposed to be ‘steamed’ as you put it. But when you attacked, it was not a wild thing. It was very contained. Focused. There was something… dangerous in it.”

  “I did tsuki,” I remembered. The thrust to the throat we had just performed in the kata tonight.

  “Just so. And it was a good, even a very good tsuki. A killing technique.”

  “I seem to remember that he dumped me on the floor.”

  Yamashita waved it away. “Burke. Of course. He was your senior and much more experienced. But Komura later confided in me that, for a brief moment, his spirit quailed under the force of your kime, your focus. And that is when I knew that you would be a good student.”

  “Because I got angry and attacked him?”

  “No. Because you grew angry but conta
ined the energy and channeled it. It wasn’t your endurance or even your aggression that impressed me. It was the brief glimpse of kime.”

  Yamashita moved his head slightly to indicate the students we were watching now. “It is what they strive to learn. Your Sarah Klein, for instance. She has the potential to use the sword well. There is an elegance there.” It was true. I felt that way whenever I caught a glimpse of her. Something of that quality carried over into her work in the dojo.

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming,” I prompted him.

  He nodded, his eyes down on the floor, watching the slow process of his own feet as they slid across the hard, polished wood. “She lacks as yet the focus needed for a killing blow.”

  “It will come in time,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” Yamashita mused. “Perhaps it is not something that she truly wishes to acquire.” Then he looked up from the floor and changed gears. “We will see. But I am glad that you are back, Burke. You will finish this study for the woman in Arizona soon?” I nodded in assent. “Good. Then your focus can return fully here. Now go and tell that young man to hold the sword properly or I will demonstrate how to take it away.”

  That would be bad. As I said, sometimes he can still stoke up the old fires.

  Eliot Westmann’s literary agent was a man named Jonathan Roberts. He had a head of snow-white hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. His face was pink, glowing with good grooming and incipient hypertension probably brought on by too many business lunches. He greeted me with the false enthusiasm of a truly professional schmoozer.

  “Dr. Burke, yes,” he purred. “Lori Westmann mentioned you might be by.”

  He leaned back in a high-backed desk chair. The leather groaned in luxurious understatement. Roberts regarded me pleasantly, silently, his bright blue eyes amused either at me or at life in general.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m finishing up some consulting work for Ms. Westmann and she indicated that you are the custodian of Eliot Westmann’s archives.”

  “Ahh, Eliot,” Roberts sighed. “What a gift the man had! I say it not only as someone who became his good friend over the years, Dr. Burke, but as an individual with some considerable experience with the range of literary talent out there in the world.” He looked at me knowingly.

  “Do you have any insight on the authenticity of some of his work?” I said. It couldn’t hurt to ask, and at this point anything would be better than what I had.

  He looked at me with a sly expression. “Dr. Burke. Really! One doesn’t question talent. One celebrates it.” He licked his lips as if savoring the remembered taste of a delicacy. “It was my privilege to represent Eliot Westmann and transform his amazing talent and vision into a considerable writing career.”

  It was your privilege to get fifteen percent of whatever deals you could cut. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t interested in telling me anything.

  “OK,” I said slowly, drawing the sound out as I thought. “Perhaps you could arrange for me to get into the archives so I can do some cross-checking on things for my report?”

  “Dr. Burke,” he beamed, “nothing would give me more personal pleasure…” He paused significantly. “Unfortunately, I’m under rather emphatic instructions that the Westmann literary archives are not to be opened for anyone at this time.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Ms. Westmann was supposed to make arrangements. There must be some mistake.”

  “Oh, no mistake,” he said, his voice suggesting sympathy, certainty, and a total lack of real engagement. “I met in person with Ms. Westmann just this morning and she was very definite as only she can be.” He smiled brightly.

  “She’s here in New York?” I asked, confused.

  “Oh, indeed.” He smoothly passed me an envelope. “She instructed that you be provided with this final… gratuity and that you be informed that your services are no longer needed.” He stood up, carefully buttoned his jacket and made sure that the line of his expensive suit fell with appropriate elegance around his figure.

  “She’s here in New York?” I repeated. My mouth often continues to function when the brain stops.

  “Oh, yes. We’re lunching today with our publisher to celebrate the re-issue of Eliot’s seminal works.” He pushed a button on his phone console and ushered me toward the door. “Really, a pleasure meeting with you, Dr. Burke. My charming assistant will see you out…” He gave a jovial wave and, as I left, disappeared back behind his office door, which snicked closed with a definite, firm, yet elegant sound.

  “So she cut ya loose,” my brother Micky said. “What did you expect?”

  “I dunno,” I shrugged. “I figured she’d at least insist that I finish the report.”

  He and Art were sitting across from me in a restaurant booth, eyeing me like I was an exhibit at the freak show.

  Art is burlier and seems more easy going than my brother, but differences in size and coloring and temperament are irrelevant: they’ve been partners a long time and share a certain unique perspective.

  “So what’s the problem?” Art began. “My poor wayward child. Always so down.” He took an appreciative sip from a pint of beer. Since they had transformed themselves from homicide cops to security consultants, Art and Mick’s hours were a bit more normal. They had gotten a plum contract working as trainers with the NYPD’s new counter-terrorism unit. The pay was excellent, there was no overtime, and they were determined to enjoy the experience.

  “Let’s see what’s good about this.” Art held up a thick hand and began ticking things off on his fingers. “You got an extended, all-expenses paid trip to Tucson, golden resort capital of the sunny Southwest…”

  “You also got paid,” Micky added.

  Art frowned at the intrusion. “You were asked to put the fine yet obscure skills you have honed through years of higher education to use,” he continued.

  “And the fact that anyone would pay you to do that is a minor miracle,” Micky cackled.

  Art held up a third finger. “Although there appeared to be certain… uh, let’s say bumpy spots, there was none of the carnage typically associated with your unescorted forays into investigations…”

  “And you got paid,” Micky reminded me.

  I nodded and took a first, appreciative sip from my glass. It was a black and tan, a smooth, creamy mix of ale and stout. I think of it as the chocolate milk of beer—so good and so good for you. I looked from one man to the other. Art smiled and nodded at me encouragingly.

  “But something about this doesn’t make sense, though,” I fumed.

  Micky snorted. He and Art had spent years in homicide, where logic was typically not a major factor in the commission of crime. But he held his tongue and let me continue.

  “I mean, think about this. Lori Westmann hires me to investigate whether her father was murdered…”

  “Ah, the Asian Assassins Theory,” Art said appreciatively.

  “The Yellow Peril,” my brother added.

  “Ninja with knives,” Art countered.

  “Guys, please,” I started, but I knew it as too late. Micky and Art are vintage movie buffs. For two people so well grounded in reality, they possess a tremendous knack for relating almost anything to old cinema.

  “Reminds me of Warner Oland,” Art said. “The Jade Mask…”

  “The Shanghai Cobra,” my brother suggested. “That Charlie Chan. A model for us all.” He shook his head appreciatively. Then he saw the look on my face and stopped. “Look,” he said in a more serious tone of voice, “I made some calls. Fiorella checks out. He was a good, solid cop. If he didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary, the death was probably what it seemed.”

  “Death by vodka,” Art concluded. “No need for assassins. The guy essentially killed himself.”

  “Then why waste money on an investigation?” I asked. “Why me?”

  They looked at each other, a silent flash of communication where shared knowledge was acknowledged and some sort of decision was made. Art reached i
nto the bowl of peanuts on the table and methodically broke open the shell, shook out the nuts, and ate them. He had big, thick hands and the tops were covered with pale freckles. Micky drank his beer and watched me.

  Art had a few more nuts, the dark wooden table before him growing littered with the paper-thin husks from the peanuts, and then began. “Well, let’s see. In the first place, what this Westmann woman has you do is not a reconstruction of the alleged crime. Instead she sends you off on a trip through this dead guy’s writing: mystery and martial arts mumbo-jumbo, right?”

  “Far as I can tell, he was making it up,” I explained. “He did a lot of research, then concocted a story and cut and pasted a variety of facts culled from the sources to make it sound plausible.”

  “So you can see why she’d choose you,” Micky commented. “You’ve got the background…” but the tone in his voice suggested something more.

  Art supplied it. “But you’re not exactly mainstream, are you, Connor?” I started to protest, but he held up a calming hand. “I’m not saying this is a bad thing. But look at it from her perspective. You’re academically qualified but not part of the academic establishment.”

  I had to admit that this was true. I had been run out of academia on a rail for some of my extra-curricular activities. And most of my energies these days were focused on running the dojo with Yamashita.

  “So from Lori Westmann’s perspective,” Micky added, “you were perfect. I mean, most specialists thought the guy was a fraud, right?”

  “Sure. I did, too.”

  Micky waved that fact away. “She was looking at it from a different angle. Your credentials would stand up to scrutiny. Most importantly, you seemed available for hire…”