The Moving Blade

by Michael Pronko

  In her job in human resources, she had overseen other people, making decisions about their lives, hiring, firing, transferring sections. That was easy. But she was not used to making decisions about herself. There’d been nothing much to decide. Now there was. She would publish her father’s manuscript—once she found it—not with Shinobu Katsumura, but with the publisher in Jinbocho, or one in New York.

  She ran through the combination again to memorize it as she reset the panel and framed print, adjusting it carefully to be sure it looked right.

  When she turned around, she screamed and dropped the money.

  “Trey! What are you doing here?” She held her hand over her heart, to stop it racing, fumbling with the envelopes in her hand and bending towards the fallen packets. The envelopes had tumbled onto the desk and onto the floor at her feet. She left them.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Trey said, holding up his hands to calm her, his blue eyes shining in the dim light. “I wanted to be sure you were all right.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The front door was open a crack. I was going to drop these in the mailbox, but I heard someone moving around in here. I thought it might be another burglar.”

  “It was me.”

  “You’re not a burglar?” Trey smiled from the door of the study, his black leather coat over his arm.

  “How long were you watching me?”

  “Were the manuscripts in there?”

  “Isn’t this a little late for an editorial meeting?”

  “Maybe your father stored them somewhere else.”

  “Where would he leave them if not in his safe?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have one idea.” Trey waved Jamie into the kitchen, folding his leather coat carefully over a chair.

  Jamie hesitated. She wanted him gone so she could find the scroll. Keeping her eyes on him, she picked up the envelopes of money and set them on the desk in a neat stack, as if it were nothing more than old paper to be used as a notepad. She didn’t even glance down at the money. She did not want Trey to get suspicious, so she followed him to the kitchen—her kitchen.

  Trey looked around. “Now, what I’m thinking is this. This is an old house, but the kitchen is missing one thing.”

  Jamie stayed in the doorway. “What’s that?”

  “A storage place under the floor.” Trey gestured to the center of the kitchen floor.

  Jamie shouted, “Oh, of course! I used to hide in there when I was a girl.” That would be where her father left the scroll, not in the safe, which she didn’t even know about. It was a game with her father. If she got angry or upset, as she often did, she would drop down into the storage chamber with the ceramic vats of pickles and jugs of umeshu plum wine. “Where’s my pickle?” her father would shout after giving her time to calm down. After a few minutes, she would pop out, smiling and happy again.

  “It’s gone, though, look.” The floor was paneled in long grey planks.

  “This flooring is paulownia wood, the lightest, strongest wood in the world.” Trey kneeled down and gave the planks a tap with his knuckles. The planks, wide as a hand and long as a tatami mat, gave out a resounding tone.

  “So?”

  “So, these planks look new, don’t they?”

  “Sort of.”

  “They’re covering the old floor.” Trey took one of the thick choppers from the knife block, hefted it confidently, knelt down and worked it under one of the planks, levering up at points along its length. The board popped up and the next ones eased out with a tug on the tongue-and-groove joint.

  Trey set the chopper on the counter.

  Below the new flooring were two small doors. Trey yanked on them and they opened. At the top of the storage chamber was the scroll. Trey handed it to Jamie. She took the two round cylinders, untied the silk sash, and unrolled a section to read what her father had left for her.

  “What does it say?” Trey asked.

  “It will take me a long time to read this.” Jamie rolled it up and retied the silk sash.

  Trey’s blue eyes honed in on hers. “You should read it in private. But look at these.”

  Stacked inside the storage space were small wood boxes. Trey pulled one out, unwrapped it and lifted the top. Inside was a tea ceremony bowl. Trey held it up, turning it gently under the light. The shape was rough and uneven, the glazing a mottle of earthy browns, dark orange and greenish blue with a rough, hand-pleasing texture.

  “It looks kind of sloppy to me? Why would he put them down there?”

  “These are worth a fortune,” Trey said.

  Jamie hugged the scroll to her chest while Trey pulled out the others, running his hands around to check for more.

  The scroll under one arm, Jamie kneeled down and pulled the top off another of the boxes. Tears started in her eyes. “This one…I used to eat from it.” She set down the scroll to pick up her once-favorite bowl, the one she used every morning to eat rice porridge. The colors had been her favorites, orange and pale pink and yellow. Could it have been so expensive? Her father let her use it as a child.

  “What should I do with these? Take them back to New York?”

  “These are probably designated as treasures, so it’s kind of a grey zone.”

  “You mean it’s illegal to export them?”

  “You’ll get a lot more in New York. Getting them there is the problem, but I can help.”

  “How?”

  “Through Guam. I used to help an antique dealer, so I know the route. And Guam’s an easy place to crash out for a few days. You need that after all you’ve been through. Let me take you.”

  What would her father want her to do? She had no idea. What did she want to do herself? She had to read the scroll first. She nodded yes, looking into Trey’s eyes.

  Trey smiled his dimpled smile. “I’ll show you how to pack them to carry on the plane.”

  “You really have done this before.”

  Trey set all the other bowls back inside and slid the paulownia wood back into place, tamping the boards down with his foot. He picked up the stainless steel cleaver and after wiping it clean, slid it back into the knife block on the counter. “I’ll arrange everything for Guam, tickets and hotel. It’s just three hours away, but it’s America. You’ll be safe there.”

  “He left a lot of cash, too.”

  “You can change it in Guam. Just double-wrap it and tuck it in your bras and underwear. If they even open it, the customs inspectors won’t look there too long.”

  Trey picked up his coat and slung it over his shoulders. She was sure it was better to humor him until she could read the scroll.

  “Day after tomorrow?” Trey said. “We can get some work done on your father’s papers in Guam, too. If you feel up to it.”

  “I’ll meet you at the airport,” Jamie said.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow about the tickets. I have a couple things I need to do first.”

  Jamie nodded quietly. “Me too.” She didn’t know what else to do so she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  Trey looked outside. “It looks like there’s a festival here tomorrow. You don’t want to stay for that?”

  “I’ll be coming back.” She was sure about that.

  “Is one day enough to get things together?” Trey asked at the front door.

  “I’ll be ready,” Jamie said. Very ready, she thought.

  Chapter 29

  As soon as Trey was gone, Jamie rested the scroll on the tatami in front of her father’s urn. She pulled a blanket over herself and began reading, unrolling one side and rolling up the other. In elegant handwriting it read:

  “To my wonderful, beautiful, intelligent daughter, Jamie. If I’m right beside you as you read this, you’ll know what a silly old man I am. But if you’re reading this and I’m not in the next room or even in the same city, it means I’m dead. I’ve been followed for months now. If you’re reading this without me, you’ll be in danger too. So, skip this first bi
t about my life—too much melodrama anyway—and go to the section near the end titled, ‘To my pickle.’ It’ll tell you what to do. I love you and always have and always will, more than you could ever know. Go to that section now, read, hurry, act!”

  Jamie read the words again, hearing her father’s voice deep in her mind. Her body shook once, twice, before she fell over in to what she’d resisted since first hearing he died—the wide inner space of grief. Her body curled up and pulled tight, letting the scroll unspool over the tatami with her father’s story splayed out, exposed and waiting. She cried in big painful spasms, floundering in the undertow of feelings.

  When she rose back to the surface, she wiped her eyes and nose with the blanket, pulled her hair back, and tried to focus through the flux of confusion, wondering how her father could know all this in advance. She wanted to read what he wrote about his life, to know his story as her own, but that would have to wait. She kept rolling and unrolling until she found “To my pickle.”

  “My book is finished, and my speech, too, so you just need to find them. Just think about what I’m saying and you’ll know where it is. The book, the long version and the short one, is ready for publication, but this scroll is just for you. The book is about how I changed my mind and changed directions. I was always on the inside, working within the system. Doing that meant cooperating with powerful people and accepting powerful forces. I consoled myself with incremental changes. It wasn’t enough. After getting sober this time, I realized I was done with that. I still had a chance to shake the foundations.

  “The American military bases in Japan have become intolerable repositories of the worst instincts of America—the lust for power, conquest, dominance. The military was keeping the world safe for democracy after the war, but now, things have reversed, and it’s democracy that provides cover for military proliferation.

  “I helped write the SOFA agreements, but I wanted them to stay in place only until Japan recovered. I never imagined America would allow anti-communist paranoia and the lust for power and profit to disrupt diplomacy. My book explains how the American empire got started and why it should be curtailed. What I found in my research was the extensive corruption underlying all this. It left me more disappointed and more despondent than I’d ever been in my life. I had to do something.

  “Enough on that for now. If you don’t think you can do this, take the money and use it and don’t worry. I will, from the grave, or the urn, or wherever I end up, love and respect you no matter what you choose.

  “If you want to help, here’s what you must know: trust Higa, the Endo Brothers, Shibata and Setsuko. Do not trust anyone else, no matter what they say. The manuscript is easy to find once you know where it is. Just think of this: You’re my pickle. And remember our special times at breakfast, your mother still sleeping, and that bowl you loved.”

  Jamie had to stop: pickle…breakfast…bowl…she read on.

  “If something happens to the Endos or to Higa, go back to New York and find a publisher there. Do not let yourself be followed. Going through Narita is too obvious. Take the shinkansen bullet train south to one of the airports in Kansai, Osaka or Fukuoka. It’s easier to get on the train without being noticed in the dense station crowd than at Narita. From there, take a flight to Korea or Hong Kong, whatever leaves first. Just get out, and quick. In New York, I have a lawyer who will help. If I’m dead, he’ll find you.

  “There is money in the safe. Your birthday will get you in. It’s enough for you to do what you want with your life. The bowls you’ll also find, my little pickle, can be sold if you need to, but get out safely. With your smarts and my directions, you’ll be fine. And never forget that I love you.”

  Jamie rolled up the scroll, went to the safe and spun the dials. Each ten thousand yen note was about one hundred dollars, the stacks as big as her grasp. She shoved several stacks into her travel bag, then went upstairs to get her suitcase. She wrapped stacks of ten-thousand yen notes in small nylon bags and tied them tightly. The money was heavier than a big bag of groceries, but her suitcase had good, strong wheels.

  She ran upstairs for her clothes and carrying them in her arms, stamped down the stairs and dumped two armfuls of clothes on the tatami. She wrapped the scroll in a sweatshirt and nestled it at the top of the bag so it wouldn’t get squashed. She pulled out all her undershirts, bras and underwear and put them around the bags of money, tucking and stuffing them inside another bigger nylon bag, hoping any customs agent would be too embarrassed to dig deeper.

  She looked up at the calligraphy hanging on the wall, shogyo mujo, “nothing remains unchanged,” took it down and put it next to her father’s scroll. She went to her father’s desk and from one of the busted drawers took out a stack of her father’s notes. It was sad to sacrifice them, but she knew her father would understand.

  She put the heavy notes into large manila folders and then one by one into her backpack. The backpack became so heavy with the weight of the thick paper, the padded straps pulled deep into her shoulders when she tried it on, but it worked. She left what did not fit in a pile on the desk, zipped the suitcase shut and locked it with a small padlock. She rolled the bag back and forth to test its weight and balance. It was heavy but rolled smoothly.

  She went to the kitchen, took the chopper and knelt down to lever up the floor boards. She pulled the top of the storage area up and took her old breakfast bowl out. She pulled the wooden top off again, confused. She tapped the empty box and got a hollow tone. She reached inside and pushed hard, then harder, until the bottom eased up on one side, and she could pull the false bottom out.

  Below, taped to the bottom corner was a USB drive. Was this what her father was killed for? She slipped the USB into her bra, the stretchy cloth pressing the hard plastic into the soft flesh of her breast.

  Carefully, she put everything back, tamping the floor boards with her foot to settle them back in place. She took the breakfast bowl with her. It would fit in the bag with the money. Her father’s computer had been trashed and she had not brought her laptop from New York. She would have to take it to the Endo brothers. They’d have one.

  She would wait until the matsuri festival started. It would be easier then to lose the detectives she assumed were still guarding the house, though they had done nothing to stop Trey coming in. She could slip away through the festival crowd, go to the Endos and talk to Higa, the editor. She would take the bullet train, get a flight to Seoul, and from there to New York. It would be the first real story of her life, a start to catching up with her father. She’d never done anything, and her father had done everything.

  She went back to the tatami room and knelt in front of her father’s ashes. To be Japanese in respect and American in determination was a balance she had never achieved before. She bowed to her father. A wave of self-satisfaction swept through her. She was sure she was doing right by everyone—everyone except Hiroshi.

  She pulled the zabuton cushions into a line in front of her father’s urn and pulled the blanket, still wet from her tears, over her. For a few hours before she left, she would try to sleep. She’d hardly even really gotten over her jet lag, anyway.

  Chapter 30

  Sakaguchi already had the door open as Ueno pulled to a stop in Shin-Okubo. Always spare with words, Sakaguchi fumed in total silence in the car from Higa’s murder site. Before Hiroshi could say a word, he was stomping down the alley toward Kim’s Korean restaurant—the only place open along the emptied-out street, its shops shuttered and the food smells long gone in the night air.

  Osaki and Sugamo ran to catch him before Sakaguchi tried to bust in on his own to the fortified seclusion where Takamatsu had delivered the sword. Hiroshi slowed his pace to watch behind for Takamatsu, pulling his coat tight around him against the cold wind blowing from both directions.

  Ueno caught up with Hiroshi, both of them waiting for Takamatsu, who finally hopped out of a taxi to join them. Hiroshi, Takamatsu and Ueno turned towards Kim’s restaurant, unsure
why they were there a second time.

  Osaki and Sugamo had wedged themselves between the front door of the restaurant and Sakaguchi pacing like a sumo wrestler in a pre-bout shikiri. When Sakaguchi saw everyone assembled, he pulled open the door, and led the charge, Osaki and Sugamo at his heels, Takamatsu, Ueno and Hiroshi a few steps behind.

  Inside, Sakaguchi forearmed the headwaiter out of the way. Sugamo grabbed him on the rebound and wrenched him up by one arm. Osaki yanked out his ear phone and lifted him from the other side. Only a few customers sat eating and drinking at this late hour, but they all turned to watch the blur of detectives frogmarching the headwaiter through the dining area towards Kim’s inner rooms.

  As they burst into the kitchen, Takamatsu shouted, “Back of the kitchen, on the right.”

  Hiroshi, pulling up the rear, eyed the startled kitchen workers, their square choppers and long bamboo spatulas frozen in place as the kitchen quieted to the bubble of soup and sizzle of woks.

  At the door, Osaki shoved the ear phone back in the headwaiter’s hands while Sugamo lowered him enough he could stand. The headwaiter stared them down for a moment before taking the ear phone and speaking in Korean, glancing at the surveillance camera overhead.

  When the door to the dark hallway clicked open, Sugamo shoved the headwaiter forward. The gourd-headed bodyguard, right inside the door, lost his footing, tattooed arms flailing, and fell back surprised against the two tall bodyguards in suits.

  Takamatsu shouted, “All the way to the back. There’s a door on the right.”

  The detectives strode down the dark corridor to Kim’s office. The door slid open and they shoved the headwaiter inside. The two suits and the gourd-head guy scrambled in after them, quickly circling the detectives. They stood sideways with their left feet forward, elbows cocked, ready to spring.

  Sakaguchi stood in front with Sugamo and Osaki on either side, while Ueno edged several steps to the right, spreading the range. Hiroshi and Takamatsu stood behind.

  Hiroshi waited for everyone to stop moving. When they did, he surveyed the cavernous room. A gleaming, floor-to-ceiling cabinet took up one wall, its front embossed with a massive character for long life. In front of the cabinet, at a wide leather-lined desk, Kim, the restaurateur and sword collector, sat calmly under soft down lights.