Fishing for Stars

by Bryce Courtenay

  These intricacies of Japanese social protocol were way beyond me. ‘So she will tell us who was involved?’ I asked.

  Fuchida-san jerked his head back, momentarily hurt by my lack of faith. ‘Of course! She requires someone with the status of an oyabun, but I will bring her extra honour by attending myself.’

  ‘May I come?’ I said, anxious not to be left behind to wait.

  The yakuza boss hesitated. ‘Nick-san, in Japan there are eyes everywhere. Are you sure you want to be seen to be involved?’

  ‘What? With you . . . the yakuza?’

  He nodded. ‘Sometimes it can be difficult, the authorities . . . you are gaijin, a foreigner,’ he explained.

  ‘It is already too late. Since your visit to the Imperial Hotel the staff turn to stone every time I appear. I imagine the “eyes” you talk about are already well aware of our friendship and have alerted the “ears”.’

  ‘That is true. Come with me then. Have you ever been into a house of bondage, Nick-san?’

  I shook my head. Anna had never allowed me to enter the Madam Butterfly premises. ‘No, I have never felt sufficiently guilty to want to pay to be punished,’ I joked.

  ‘Then you are definitely not Japanese,’ he grinned. ‘In Japan, guilt and shame are just as much a part of our national and individual personality as love and joy. Their ultimate expression is seppuku, ritual suicide.’

  This time the flying yakuza circus contained six black Toyotas with four men to each car and Fuchida-san and myself in the big Mercedes. ‘We will block the street outside the premises so that the people in the immediate area will come to watch,’ he explained. ‘In this way the Jade Mistress will gain a great deal of face and prestige from my visit, her honour will have been satisfied and her rich patrons suitably mollified.’ He chuckled.

  I was slowly beginning to grasp the extent of the subtleties and intricacies of Japanese society, although I realised I would never be able to understand them all. When manners, mannerisms and meanings have such delicate nuances that one word placed or emphasised in a certain way in a perfectly proper statement can corrupt it and give it quite the opposite meaning, then only one who is born and raised in a particular class or section of the society can interpret it.

  We turned into a narrow cul-de-sac, the six Toyotas making an appropriate amount of noise with squealing tyres and blasting horns. ‘Noise is essential to create fear and anticipation in the public,’ the yakuza boss shouted above the din. ‘A proper entrance is everything.’

  We came to a halt in what seemed like a synchronised squeal of all twenty-eight tyres with the smoke of burning rubber rising from the surface of the road. ‘Excellent!’ Fuchida-san exclaimed with a satisfied smile. The three leading Toyotas had halted one behind the other at the end of the narrow cul-de-sac and directly in front of what appeared to be a small three-storeyed apartment building occupying its entire width. The only distinctive feature to separate it from the surrounding buildings was its jade-green door, at which two older black-suited yakuza stood guard.

  ‘I guess we’ve arrived!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘We will wait, Nick-san. First let the people come. An entrance without an audience is pointless.’ Fuchida-san laughed. ‘Unless it is an assassination.’

  We waited as the foot soldiers piled out of the black vehicles to surround the Mercedes. The noise of our arrival subsided and I could hear the sound of running feet as the street rapidly filled with onlookers who began to line up on either pavement, each selecting a position and then standing silently at polite attention. In almost no time, more than a hundred people appeared to have gathered from nowhere. The yakuza boss, watching them arrive, suddenly made up his mind. ‘There are now enough people; the Jade Mistress will gain face. We can go in.’

  We stepped out of the large black car surrounded by yakuza to a buzz of excitement from the crowd. There was an almost palpable feeling of fear in the crowd mixed with a sense of delicious excitement, as if they were being permitted to take part in an exciting public event. Fuchida-san, stern-faced, bowed in a perfunctory way to acknowledge them, whereupon the onlookers on both sides of the street immediately inclined their bodies in a deep formal bow. It reminded me of primary-school classes when we all greeted the teacher with a resounding chorus of ‘Good morning, Miss’ as she entered the class. This crowd, as excited as schoolchildren, were unabashedly saluting the crime chief of Tokyo. They maintained the bow until we reached the jade-green door and entered to the equally deep bows of the two yakuza guards.

  The wakagashira and foot soldiers, arms folded, remained outside, lined up across the width of the building, facing the crowd in a menacing display intended to heighten their sense of occasion.

  Fuchida-san turned to me. ‘If you will permit me to talk, Nick-san?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There is a manner to be observed,’ he added gratuitously.

  The Jade Mistress, dressed in a formal kimono, met us in a small reception lounge. She was kneeling, geisha style, with her weight on her heels. The yakuza boss bowed politely, saying only a single word, ‘Mama-san’. I wasn’t sure whether this was an insult or the correct way to address the mistress of a house of bondage.

  The woman appeared to be in her forties, though it was difficult to tell under the heavy make-up, her face a flat, white, powdered mask punctuated with dark black-rimmed eyes and brilliant red Clara Bow lips. If she was the senior dominatrix, her get-up was in marked contrast to the black leather thigh-high boots and bikini of Kevin’s pornographic movie fantasies, and I wondered briefly about the traditional kinbaku kimono Anna wore while working at Madam Butterfly. The mama-san bowed deeply in the saikeirei manner, her forehead touching the floor in the highest form of salutation to a feared superior. ‘Welcome, Oyabun, to the Jade House,’ she said in a voice hardly above a whisper.

  ‘Thank you, Mama-san. My visit is intended to honour you and your house. I have with me a gaijin of great importance and it would give me great distress if the answers you are about to give me are not the ones I require.’

  In a gesture reminiscent of a gangster movie he’d taken a gold Dunhill lighter from his suit pocket, and as the Jade Mistress came out of her bow, he flicked it alight so that her eyes were attracted to the flame and to his hand with the missing pinkie. He would continue throughout the ensuing conversation to flick the lighter on and off. Like a bird in front of a snake she was mesmerised, unable to take her eyes off his mutilated hand, her mind I felt sure very aware of what it signified.

  ‘I am servant to your wishes, Oyabun-dono,’ the Jade Mistress replied. The suffix ‘dono’ means ‘lord’ and is used as the ultimate mark of respect. Quite clearly the Jade Mistress wasn’t taking Fuchida-san’s visit lightly, or, like the true actress she was trained to be, she was playing the role of humble compliance to perfection.

  ‘You must allow me to leave with the satisfaction of having pleased my honourable colleague, thus enabling me to reward you by allowing the Jade House to maintain its integrity and its reputation in the eyes of your esteemed patrons.’ This sentence was punctuated by three flicks of the lighter flame.

  The formality of the language, delivered in an even monologue, sounded like an actor’s first reading of a play, but then I realised that this was precisely the intention. The threat to the continuation of the Jade House, buried in polite and formal language delivered without emotion, informed the mama-san that she would have only one opportunity to come clean, the implication being that, if she refused, she would cause the unthinkable – a loss of face for Fuchida-san. The consequences were unimaginable.

  The Jade Mistress bowed deeply once again. ‘It is not possible to refuse your request, honourable Oyabun-dono. The abduction was carried out by the writer of books.’

  ‘Thank you, you have been most courteous, Mama-san. I will now ask a question to which you will merely nod your head so your lips may remain sealed. Was this abduction at the request of someone whose approach can be recognise
d by the tap, tap, tap of his cane?’ The Jade Mistress, in an almost imperceptible gesture, lowered her eyes and nodded her head. ‘I honour your house,’ Fuchida-san said softly, then bowed and added, ‘We will trouble you no further.’ The yakuza boss paused. ‘But for one more question . . . the whereabouts of the mistress of kinbaku?’

  Her head touched the floor. ‘I do not know, Oyabun, it was not revealed to me.’

  ‘We will leave now, Jade Mistress,’ Fuchida-san said, giving her finally her correct title.

  ‘It will always be an honour to welcome you to our humble house, Oyabun,’ the Jade Mistress answered, bowing as deeply as before.

  But the yakuza boss had one more trick up his sleeve. Producing a small notepad and then a gold Parker pen, he handed them to her silently. She read what was written in the note that Fuchida-san would later show me. As I remember it, the note said: Write the name of the people who kidnapped Anna-san and the name of the person who ordered it to be done. Then sign it. I recall how the Jade Mistress could barely control her hand sufficiently to write, but I later saw she had written the four words, Shield Society, Konoe-dono, and signed it, Kanako Nariko.

  I’d thought the performance with the Dunhill had been a little over the top, but it was nothing compared to the extroverted display when the yakuza boss had first come to meet me at the Imperial Hotel. Then Fuchida-san had openly flaunted his power, even though there seemed no need to do so, whereas in the Jade House he had concealed it, in the first instance brandishing the metaphorical sword, in the second deliberately leaving it in the scabbard, thereby emphasising the menace behind his calm words. The note at the end, confirming that both parties had understood the oblique dialogue, demonstrated the thoroughness of Fuchida-san’s interrogation method.

  Neither Konoe Akira’s name nor Anna’s had been spoken, and Yukio Mishima, novelist, leader of the Shield Society, and a declared enemy of the government, had only been alluded to obliquely. If the room had been bugged, the exchange was open to conjecture and easily denied or otherwise explained away.

  Back in the big black car we reversed the entire length of the narrow road in a furious whine of engines. I waited until we had turned into a major thoroughfare before asking, ‘Do we know how to get to the Shield Society?’

  ‘Oh, you know about them?’ Fuchida-san asked, surprised.

  ‘My father again,’ I confessed. ‘He likes to keep informed.’

  The Shield Society was an extreme rightwing post-war militarist secret society founded and led by the brilliant and famous Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. Later, in November of the same year we were in Japan, he attempted a futile coup d’état, and after its disastrous failure he committed seppuku – ritual suicide.

  ‘You are fortunate to have such a scholar for a father, Nick-san. Your country should make him a diplomat to Japan.’

  ‘Thank you, I will tell him of this compliment from you, Fuchida-san. But with these fascists . . . Will Anna be safe?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘They are crazy romantics and very dangerous, but there is no political point to make in harming her. This is almost certainly a paid kidnapping, or one done as a favour to Konoe Akira. From what you have indicated he is just the type of old-guard rightwing militarist who would secretly provide them with finance and logistical support.’

  I was only partially satisfied with Fuchida-san’s answer. ‘You don’t think they may want to use Anna’s kidnapping for propaganda? You know, drum up some support for the Shield Society among the common people, the poor and deprived who blame the Western world for their misfortune?’

  The yakuza boss shook his head. ‘There is no strong feeling against Westerners, even among the disadvantaged. Japan had been at war off and on since 1931 and by the end of 1945 we were destroyed and broken as a nation. Our people were starving, our cities burnt and the working class in particular was thoroughly disillusioned. The warmongering rulers had brought them nothing but death, defeat, misery and empty bellies. I don’t think the common folk want to see the return of those days. Those pre-war times, when the Emperor was regarded as a god and had complete control of the state, are long past. Only extreme rightwing romantics like Yukio Mishima and diehards such as Konoe Akira see the old Japan as better than the new society we now live in. The government would like nothing more than to learn of such a kidnapping; it would be the perfect excuse for them to interfere directly.’

  ‘You mean that right now we could go directly to the First Intelligence Division or the police?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But —’

  Before I could continue he interrupted. ‘Then the crazies would almost certainly kill Anna-san in retaliation.’

  ‘And that won’t happen when the yakuza come calling?’

  ‘Hai! I have a plan,’ he said. ‘You must wait until the meeting I have arranged with my people.’

  ‘Do you know of Konoe Akira?’ I asked, thinking Fuchida-san might be able to bring me up-to-date with his post-war career.

  ‘I know of him, but I do not know him, which is not unusual. These old-guard families often keep a pretty low profile. I have put three of my best men on the job and by the time we meet with my five oyabun I expect we will have a complete profile on him and also know where Konoe Akira lives. We have been watching these fanatics for some time. Like the government, we see them as a distinct threat to the harmony of our nation. If we can prove Konoe Akira is heavily involved with this group it will earn us the gratitude of the authorities.’

  ‘But if Konoe Akira is a member of one of the powerful family groups, will he not have a lot of influence . . . protection?’

  ‘Hai! If it becomes known that he is involved in this lunacy he will have dug his own grave. His powerful friends will desert him.’

  ‘Your plans to get to Konoe Akira . . . I would not like them to put Anna in any danger.’

  ‘Nick-san, I cannot deny that she is already in some danger. Our plan is to attempt to rescue her. Konoe Akira will stand to lose too much not to respect our wishes, just like the Jade Mistress. This is Japan and sometimes a woman may have a certain value, but it is never greater than the scandal she may bring if her tongue is loosened. From what you have told me, Anna would look very beautiful on the television explaining the past and exposing the scion of a noble family. In this case shame is our most powerful weapon.’

  ‘No violence then?’

  He laughed, this time a real laugh. ‘Violence comes when you least expect it. We will prepare for a battle and hope the enemy comes out carrying a white flag.’ Fuchida-san clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You have done me a great service, Nick-san. I feel young again, and it will do my men good to see their oyabun leading them in a patriotic cause. Intimidation is essentially a boring pastime; it has been too long since we did something for the honour of the new Japan.’

  ‘But only after Anna is freed,’ I begged.

  ‘Hai! Of course, but afterwards perhaps we will be less passive.’ He turned and grinned at me. I made no reply, unsure whether ‘we’ included me. Once Anna was safe I had resolved that come hell or high water we’d be getting out of Japan; I wasn’t going to become involved in putting down some fanatical uprising. As Kevin would have said, ‘What I want yer to know, buddy, I ain’t no fuckin’ hero.’

  We arrived back at the apartment building and once we reached the penthouse after the shenanigans with the cars and the lift, I asked if I might use one of the numerous phones that were keeping Miss Sparkle running around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly. I couldn’t help being puzzled that the yakuza boss didn’t have a young whip-smart lieutenant or some such to do his phone work, note-taking and administration. The old woman with her hair styled in the manner of a geisha wearing the ridiculous sparkling ear pendants simply didn’t fit my image of personal assistant to the most powerful crime boss in Tokyo.

  Of course, my most ardent wish was that Anna had returned to the hotel, and a situation that was becoming a little complicated w
ould then be resolved. Just to be sure, we’d take an almost immediate taxi ride to the airport.

  The hotel switchboard dialled our suite and after a small delay told me that there was no response. I had felt constrained for too long. ‘Get reception to send someone up to my suite and take a look!’ I yelled down the phone. Then using the newfound influence they didn’t know I didn’t have I shouted, ‘Or there will be more trouble than any of you monkeys can handle!’ using Fuchida-san’s term for them. I seemed to wait for ages only to be finally told in a trembling voice, prefaced by a thousand stuttered apologies, that Anna was not in the suite.

  I returned to the chrome and black room to discover five older yakuza men seated around the highly polished circular table – all of them oyabun as I was later to learn – in earnest discussion with Fuchida-san. They were all sporting the mandatory black suits and cropped hair, some of it greying, although they had removed their sunglasses. The chrome pendant lamp etched shadows onto their faces, giving them the appearance of a group of stern-faced generals, which, in a manner of speaking, I suppose they were. A chair had been placed in the circle for me, and the yakuza boss indicated that I should occupy it, barely pausing in his briefing.