Deshi (19 page)
“So Hoddington must have had it then, and got killed, too,” I added.
“Plus he got tortured, which tells me that the killer was doing two things: trying to find the missing document and eliminating people who had seen it. Same thing with Kim.”
The two detectives nodded.
“But what’s with Han’s interest in Changpa?” I asked. “What’s with the Chinese?”
My brother shrugged. “Art may be right. Han’s out on the street for hire. The guy’s like a one-man crime wave, but not everything he’s doin’ may be connected. You don’t want to fall in love with any one theory too soon,” Micky lectured.
“We’re not real sure about the Han link to the Hoddington murder,” Art said. “The timing could just be a coincidence.”
“That’s what I mean,” Micky said and filled his mouth full of food. “There could be a link. Then again, it could just be a coincidence.”
“Come on!” I protested. “Do you really believe that?”
“Murders happen every day, buddy boy. Everywhere. Even down south.”
“There’s danger in them thar hills,” Art said, like a man revealing a subtle truth.
“Yeah, Connor,” my brother added. “Didn’t you ever see
Deliverance
?”
“You guys are not serious,” I said.
“No, we’re not,” Micky answered. He had finished his food. My brother ate mechanically: fuel for the machine. Most meals were gulped down as if he were a fighter pilot waiting to scramble. “But,” he continued, “we’re waiting to see what sort of forensic stuff we finally get from the cops down in Dixie. Be good if we could get some useful DNA stuff and match it to the crimes up here. But we’re not too hopeful.”
“I keep thinking about the
Dukes of Hazzard
,” Art said.
“
Smokey and the Bandit
,” my brother offered.
“Fellas, please,” I pleaded.
Art popped the end of an egg roll into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. My brother eyed me speculatively. “How’s your research going on the Big Clue at Sakura’s?” He grinned wickedly.
I hung my head and described how I had been trying to hunt down significant Japanese literary references to “spring wind.” I had piled up books in reading rooms and hunted through indexes. The Japanese are big nature lovers: consequently, there was no shortage of things to look at. Days ago, I had asked Yamashita’s advice and he pointed me in a number of directions. I read various types of poetry—
tanka
, haiku. I pored over the works of poets like Basho. I even came across a famous martial arts dojo named
Shumpukan
—Hall of the Spring Wind.
“Hmm,” Art said.
“Ya know what you got?” Micky asked. I shook my head. “You got dick,” he concluded with a perverse look of satisfaction.
His cell phone went off. He grunted into it a few times then looked at Art. “We gotta roll.”
Art got very still for a moment. “You mean,” he paused significantly, “we gotta… egg… roll.”
Micky groaned and made as if to whack him on the arm. But I saw him pull the blow at the last minute when he realized it was Art’s wounded side.
If Art noticed, he didn’t show it. He scooped up the remains of his lunch and they began to move. The bill sat there unclaimed, Chinese writing on a green ticket with the dollar amount underlined twice. I sighed and picked it up. At least Charlie Wilcox hadn’t eaten.
“If you can get a handle on what Sakura and Hoddington were working on, maybe we’d see the connection clearer,” Micky offered on his way out. “Meanwhile, we’ll continue to run things down on this end. And Connor?”
I looked at him. Micky has hard, pale eyes. He’s seen a lot of things.
“What?”
“Don’t dick around with this one. If there is a link between these murders, the guy who did it…”
“Han?” I asked.
My brother waved the name away. “Han or not. The killer’s big,” Micky said, nodding at Art. “He’s not afraid of getting dirty. And he likes to use his hands.”
“You get anywhere close on this one, you call us,” Art said.
“For sure,” my brother said. And then they were gone.
The dojo was silent, and you could hear the whisper of fabric as Yamashita untied the ribbon on his inka. He unrolled it, placing it with reverence on a square of silk so dark and blue that it looked black against the wood of the low table he had set in the training area.
I had seen it before. Every New Year, my sensei holds the traditional dojo ceremony, honoring the art he serves and the memory of the masters that stretch behind him like a chain forged to link the past with the present.
The scroll is covered with calligraphy that details the history of the Yamashita-ha Itto Ryu, my master’s style. And mine. The inka is long and old. When you reach a certain level of proficiency in Yamashita’s art, you are given a certificate attesting to your training, but also bearing his seal and a hand print as a mark of authenticity. A
ryu
is a style of martial art, and the word literally refers to a flow of tradition through time. On assuming mastery of the ryu, Yamashita had received the historical document that bore calligraphy, seals, and hand marks that stretched back generations. It’s not just one scroll, but many, each representing a stage in the art’s propagation.
We were alone in the cavernous hall. We had discussed my attempts at unraveling the mystery of Sakura’s last message and had agreed to set aside the nagging problem of the meaning of
shumpu
for now. I had told my sensei about the murders in Georgia and Queens and the growing idea I had that the inka Sakura sent was somehow the key to unraveling the murders. But the question lingered: what could have been contained in the document? It was not tremendously valuable in objective terms, but if I was right, it had spawned three murders.
He had sighed and motioned me to follow him. Now, we sat on our heels in the formal seiza position, looking at his scrolls. It felt good to be barefoot and in the dojo. Even the sensation of the wood floor on the tops of my feet was a familiar, welcoming one. They say that a younger generation of Japanese is losing the ability to sit like this: it’s an anachronism in a world where people use chairs. But I had been sinking down to the floor to sit this way for years, and it felt right.
We looked at the scrolls quietly for a time. Then Yamashita spoke. “Why do people write things down, Professor?”
I looked at him, but his eyes told me nothing of what he was getting at. “Many reasons,” I said. “It makes things… concrete. Visible. When you write things down, they are fixed on the page.”
My teacher nodded. “This is true. A document such as this one, for instance,” he held his hand palm up and gestured gently across the table, “is a way to fix a line of transmission. The writing makes it public. And immutable.”
“It also tells something important about you,” I added. “Historical documents show where we come from. And also suggest where we may go.”
His eyes narrowed with pleasure. “I like that, Burke. Like the hassetsu of the archer. Stylized actions that have an impact on the arrow’s flight. Something that is grounded in the past which also suggests something of what can happen in the future.” He paused for a moment. “Your countrymen are fascinated by history at the same time that they seek to free themselves of it. I wonder if they know this.”
I smiled then. I had written an article on American culture and its fascination with the martial arts where I discussed just this issue. It was published in an obscure but respectable journal, and Yamashita had never mentioned it, but it was nice to know that someone was paying attention.
Americans, I thought, craved the tradition of the arts at the same time that they yearned to break free from their strictures. This is why Americans loved the idea of wearing a black belt—the cachet of secret and ancient knowledge—while at the same time felt drawn to start new systems headed by thirty-year-old masters. It was Miyamoto Musashi meets Daniel Boone.
“To be comfortable with something like this scroll,” I said, “you also have to be comfortable with who you are and where you’re going.”
“That is true,” my master replied.
“And,” I reminded him, “the possession of something like this also gives you a certain power.” I saw him look at me quizzically, and I made myself clearer. “I mean it gives you a certain authority.”
Yamashita looked down at the scrolls. “I understand your meaning, Professor, but in reality the authority I have is generated here on the dojo floor. This inka has no real power to confer anything.”
He saw my skeptical look and continued. “I value the scrolls for the fact that they symbolize a link to my teachers. That is all.”
“You mean…” I started, but he broke in. In a fight, Yamashita could tell what you were going to do before you did. It was often the same in conversation.
“Were I to lack this inka, Professor, would my skill be any less? Would you no longer be my student?”
I looked down. “No, Sensei.”
“And why is that?” he gently prodded.
I looked up. “I have been with you too long… and seen too much to have any doubts.” I struggled to sum it up. The frustration he sometimes brought me, the feelings of impatience. But also the moments of clarity, the experience of revelation that chills and warms simultaneously. Finally, I just shrugged. “You are my teacher.”
He sat back on his heels and nodded, watching me carefully. “Of course,” he concluded after a moment. And he placed his two large hands softly down on the scroll. “This is a symbol of the connection between master and disciple. Nothing more. Nothing less. Without the human link, it is merely ink and paper. Only the foolish would mistake it for more. Or the inexperienced.”
“But it’s possible that someone could think it was valuable,” I persisted.
Yamashita made a doubtful face and nodded. When the Japanese nod like that, it doesn’t mean they agree. They’re just too polite to say no.
“Value,” Sensei said, “is calculated in many ways. Different people place value on objects for different reasons. It is as I have often told you, Burke. The wonder of any person is in complexity. A man is not always what he appears. There are within him varying hopes and ideas. Things we would not suspect until they are finally revealed…”
He stood up and seemed to switch topics. He walked to the stand on a table where his swords nestled in a rack made of deer antlers. They were stored with the handles to the right, cutting edge up, as befits a warrior. Yamashita lightly touched the black sheen on the scabbards.
“I have found watching the kyudoka interesting, Burke,” he said quietly. “Their art is so different from ours…”
“The intervals are so wide,” I said. “A distant target seems to create a different… dynamic.” After I said it, I realized that I had unconsciously mimicked the pace of my master’s speech.
Yamashita looked up sharply at me. “This is so. They yearn to bridge the gap between archer and mark. It is an interesting exercise in the projection of ki.”
“Can they do it?” I asked.
“Some… with time. Others not. Then again, it is often hard to say.” He came back to his seat. “I think the Klein woman has promise.”
I grinned at him. “Me, too.”
He settled himself in the seiza. “I have accepted the invitation of Kita-san to join his students at a seminar in the mountains. Ms. Klein will go. I believe the Rinpoche also.”
This was a surprise, but I said nothing. Talking with my teacher was like sparring: you tried not to react much to feints. But a small feeling of uneasiness began to buzz deep down in my gut.
“I will go and watch Kita’s students. To see whether the art Stark boasts of is worthy of attention.” But he said it evasively, as if hiding his real motives.
I looked at him. Anyone else would have hung their head under the power of that skeptical look. Finally, he closed his eyes. “Perhaps the art is so much smoke,” he admitted. “But there is something there to see. We must remain open to these things, Professor.”
“It seems like a waste of time,” I said quietly.
“What we expect to see and what is in front of us are sometimes different,” Yamashita chided me. “As it is with people, so it is with other things. Think on this, Burke.”
Like many things with Yamashita, the comment did not make things immediately clear.
I lured Sarah Klein out from Manhattan to the wilds of Brooklyn for dinner that night. There was a Japanese place I saved for special occasions—all cedar posts and whitewashed walls. The waitresses were often Filipinos in kimono, but the cook was Japanese enough and they served those really big bottles of Kirin beer. When you added Sarah to the mix, it was a beautiful thing.
I’m sure I impressed her with my dexterity at dinner. I snapped apart the wooden chopsticks known as
hashi
and deftly plucked a
gyoza
dumpling off a platter, setting it down neatly on her plate. The aesthetics of Japanese dining include your surroundings, the plates and cups, and even your eating utensils. As a sop to Round Eyes, cutlery is provided. But traditional Japanese sensibilities recoil at their use. They prefer the wooden hashi. The metal implements of Western tableware strike the Japanese as uncouth: more like tools used on an operating table than something fit for civilized dining.
She raised an eyebrow as I set the dumpling before her. “You’ve done this before, I see.”
I had dipped my own gyoza into the sauce and crammed it into my mouth, so it took a moment to reply. I nodded and swallowed. “One of the side benefits of a youth spent in the martial arts. You get to eat Japanese food a lot.”
Sarah slipped her hashi out of their paper sleeve and experimented with them. She did a pretty good job. “What are the other benefits?” she asked me.
“Well,” I began, “the usual: bad knees, calloused feet…”
“It doesn’t seem to have scared you off.” She smiled.
I grinned ruefully. I also cast a covert glance at the gyoza tray, mentally tallying how many I could eat and not appear like a hog. “It’s an Irish-American trait,” I told her. “We’re stubborn. Once we get going on something, it’s hard to make us stop.”
Sarah sipped at her wine and looked at me. Her hands were slim and graceful and her nails were cut short and carefully shaped. She was an elegant woman. “I’ll bet there’s more to it than that,” she said to me. “You write about these arts. You study them. They occupy a big part of your life…” She let the statements hang there to get me to say more.
