Deshi (29 page)
Yamashita Sensei was waiting. He wanted me to lead a practice session of aspiring swordsmen, a mixed group of men and women who were clearly less than enthused to have me teaching them instead of Yamashita. My teacher had been somewhat cryptic about what he was going to be doing while I led the training, but his expressionless face told me volumes. He would prowl the Yamaji. Probing for weaknesses. Watching for danger. There was a restless vigilance to the man, even at the best of times. It was the mark of a survivor.
I stood before the class in a sunny clearing. The grass underfoot was well tended and short, but there was enough irregularity in the ground to make things challenging for all of us in bare feet. There were going to be some stubbed toes today.
I worked with the group on a distance exercise, one designed to keep the combat interval,
ma-ai
, at an optimum level. In practical terms, I tried to get the pairs of students to be able to keep their bokken in contact, the tips crossed two to three inches below the sword’s point. When Yamashita crosses swords with you, it’s like there’s a magnet in his weapon and it sticks to you no matter what. It sounds easy, but when twopeople are moving around seeking an advantage, it’s not. The trick is to relax and keep centered, but that’s pretty much the trick for everything in life—easy to say, hard to do. I’ve gotten so that I can do it, but it’s a strain, even after all these years.
Stark strode over, dressed in the black uniform of Kita’s system. He carried a wooden sword. I called for a break and went over to him. Whatever comfort we had once developed with each other had evaporated. Stark’s face seemed stiff. “You’re here,” he said simply. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know what’s going on, Stark,” I said with a low urgency. He looked startled for a moment, then confused.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. But his eyes looked like he was hiding something.
“What did you come to New York for?” I persisted.
“To study with other masters,” he said simply. “The Rinpoche.”
I almost believed him. “Changpa Rinpoche doesn’t teach what you’re interested in,” I said. I saw his eyes shift a little and knew he was hiding something.
He shrugged. “Kita Shihan has respect for the lamas.”
I looked hard into his face, but couldn’t pierce the look of flat sincerity he had generated. He could have been telling the truth. Or at least part of it. But he was uneasy. Stark sensed my skepticism. He looked at me with narrowed eyes for a minute, then gestured with the sword. “I thought I’d help you give your people a run for their money.”
The shift in topic clinched it for me: something was going on here. “Thanks,” I told him. “You’re just full of good deeds these days. How’s Sarah Klein?”
Again, I got the sense of an emotional shift taking place just below the surface. “We spend some time together,” he said evasively.
I wanted to choke him. Could he be so oblivious to the danger he was putting her in? I was convinced that contact with people involved with whatever Kita was up to was dangerous. Was Stark really that oblivious? I wanted to think about it, but the students were looking at us and I called the class back into order.
Most of them had been at yesterday’s session and had seen Yamashita disarm his opponent. They asked to see me demonstrate it again. Part of it was enthusiasm for the technique, but there was another, less innocent undercurrent. Martial artists, even the best of us, have a predatory urge. In time, with good training, it gets sublimated, but it’s still there. There’s always a subtle urge to gratify it. I caught the looks on some faces. They wanted to see whether Yamashita’s senior pupil was up to the skill level of his master.
I looked reluctantly about for a partner and Stark spoke up. “Here you go,” he said in a low voice as he took his place before me and brought his sword up.
We crossed swords and I felt the buzz of tension flowing off him like a current. I couldn’t figure him out. Did he really know something and was here to keep tabs on me? Or was this something more basic, like simple rivalry? Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a few of his black-clad friends drifting over to watch. There was a look of satisfaction on Stark’s face, and I wondered whether there wasn’t more than one motivation working in him.
We began to circle each other, looking for a
tsuki
, a gap in concentration, that would permit an attack. It was early afternoon, so the sun was still high. It was a good thing. A classic bit of strategy is to maneuver an opponent so that the sun is in his eyes. I was spared that, but I was a bit worried about the irregularity of the ground. Stark had on sandals. I was barefoot. It only takes a small pebble, unfortunately placed, to bruise a heel, and in the fleeting moment when you wince in pain, a flaw appears in your defenses.
I worried too much, and it must have showed. He used the distraction and struck out at my right wrist in a quick, tight snap. Stark had always had potential, and the short time with Yamashita had brought it out. I dropped my arm down to avoid the strike, pivoting away from his attack, but even so he caught my forearm and it buzzed a little bit from the blow.
I came back and tried to ride his sword blade down, but he swept it out and back behind him. It was nice technique, but the set up for the head strike he followed with took a shade too much time.
I parried the strike and countered, using the force of his strike to help me whip my sword around. I brought it down, reaching for his right clavicle. He backed away and I recovered, thrusting out at him and hoping that the jabbing sword point would send him reeling. But he had trained in my dojo and he knew the technique. He parried it with an easy movement and a twist of the hips. I circled away, out of range.
It was hot there in the sun. I felt the eyes of the onlookers measuring me. And as he came at me again, I realized that the ferocity of the attack made this something other than a training exercise. I had watched him in training these last few weeks. And training takes place at a high level of intensity, but it’s not as high as a real fight. Now Stark was going full throttle, driving for the decisive result he had been seeking ever since we met at the kendo dojo.
The realization of what was happening meant that I had to shift mental gears. There is, after all, fighting. And then there is
fighting
. It’s a point I continually try to bring home to people in Yamashita’s dojo. They don’t really get it—it’s something you have to experience for yourself. But it’s not something I wish on anyone.
In the next few minutes he had clipped me any number of times—I’d have welts by dinner—and I’d gotten a few good shots in myself. But I had been slow to focus on the seriousness of things, and the match was going on way too long. Any time you fight, time is your enemy. It saps your energy and exposes your weakness. The best strategy is a lightning attack, but you’ve got to be good. Or lucky.
Some days I’m neither. In my concern for the behind-the-scenes hunt for the killer, I had not taken the gasshuku itself seriously. Maybe I hadn’t taken Stark seriously, either. And now I had to ramp myself up for the type of effort this fight was going to require.
He tripped me at one point, and I felt myself going down. Your instinct is to fight it, but there is a deeper, truer series of reflexes and Yamashita had worked to bring them to life in me. So I surrendered myself to the fall and rolled out of it, a split second ahead of my opponent’s follow up blow. I rolled onto my knees and pivoted around to face him. My bokken was set between my outstretched hands to catch the force of his strike, coming straight down for my head.
“Enough!” The voice like thunder. Yamashita stood there, swelling with indignation.
I stood there, breathing hard. Stark reluctantly backed away, the energy slowly bleeding out of his form. Sensei dismissed the class. The students didn’t say much, just milled around making muttered comments to each other.
Yamashita was tight-lipped. “What is the meaning of this? Burke, I left you in a position of responsibility. You were to teach these people. Not engage in… acrobatics.” The unspoken message in his eyes was one of the need to avoid distraction. As far as he was concerned, I had failed.
Stark said to me, “You think that was tough, wait until Kita Shihan gets here with his advanced people.” He was breathing deeply, but it was under control. Then, in a voice that was half warning, half insult, “You shouldn’t have come, Burke.”
“Idiot,” my teacher barked, rounding on him. “There is more to this than you know.” Stark blanched under Yamashita’s anger, but was smart enough to stay silent. “You look at things, but do not
see
,” Sensei hissed. “Go. Think carefully. A time is coming for you.”
“A time for what?” Stark asked.
“Decisions,” Yamashita said, then wheeled away from the two of us.
Kita’s arrival was marked with tremendous fanfare. There was a flurry of activity among the Yamaji staff and, although no one actually saw him, word of his presence spread. I snuck down to tell Micky, but it’s true what they say about cops—they’re never around when you need them. Then I tried to call my brother, but his cell phone didn’t work in the mountains. I ended up phoning his precinct house and asking them to relay the message.
Late in the afternoon, there was a reception at the conference center. The senior instructors lined up to one side of a dais, Yamashita with them. I knelt behind him. Other advanced students sat on either side of me, each behind his or her own sensei. We looked across the floor to where Kita’s disciples were, a mass of serious, yet excited people in black. The gasshuko participants formed an audience to our right, and their expectant hum filled the reception hall. As we waited, Changpa and his retinue walked slowly in and were seated in a place of honor on the dais.
I saw Sarah Klein enter and slipped over to see her. She was waiting expectantly with the other kyudoka for Kita’s appearance and didn’t spot me until the last minute. Her serious heart-shaped face broke into a smile. “Burke!” she said and reached out to touch me.
“Let’s go outside,” I murmured. It was dangerous for our connection to be too apparent, and I hoped it would get lost in the excitement. Sarah looked concerned, but nodded and followed me out through the crowd. It wasn’t difficult: most people were focused on getting into the hall, not getting out.
I steered her around a corner where we’d be out of sight of the main entrance. “I didn’t expect…” she started. But I cut her off.
“Listen, Sarah. I need you to be careful. Things are happening here.”
Her eyes got wide. “Related to the murders?”
I nodded. “Kita’s involved somehow.”
“Kita!”
“Keep your voice down,” I urged her, and cast a quick glance about for anyone watching. So far, so good. “I’m not sure what’s really going on, but the mysterious inka shows that Kita’s a fraud.” Sarah had picked up enough of the tense urgency in my voice not to bother interrupting. She listened carefully as I gave her a quick description of Han and his probable involvement with the murders. “If you see this guy, get away and tell my brother Micky. He’s around somewhere.”
She reached out and touched me softly on the arm. “I’ve never met your brother, Connor.” Her voice was quiet.
“He looks like me, only taller, thinner. Crankier. Mustache. White streak in his hair. He’ll be down by the reception area.”
She smiled a little and you could see the thought processes behind her eyes as she digested the description.
“I don’t want to let anyone see me with you,” I explained. “It might make things dangerous for you.”
“What do I know?” she said.
“You know me. It might be enough.” She hadn’t broken off contact when she touched me, and now her hand slipped down to hold mine.
“It’s that dangerous, Burke?” She swallowed as she said it, and you could see the neck muscles tense.
I didn’t answer the question. “You just stay low and keep your eyes open. And Sarah,” I pulled her gently a little closer to me and felt a curious tense fluttering in my stomach that was generated from her nearness. “Keep tabs on the Rinpoche. He may be in danger as well.”
“Why me?” she asked. It’s the classic response when people first get exposed to these sorts of situations. After a while, if you want to come out the other end, you stop wondering about things and just get on with it.
“I trust you,” I said.
Something flickered in her eyes. “Oh, Connor,” she said, and her voice sounded shaky, “I’ve got to let you know something…” She licked her lips as if summoning up nerve. “About Travis. And me.”
I gave her a small, tight smile. I’d figured a few things out over the last few hours. “You don’t have to explain.” She did anyway. How she had met him in California and they had lived together. The breakup and her move to New York.
“And he just showed up,” she said in a rush. “I never encouraged him in any way…”
I put a finger on her lips and smiled again. Explanations weren’t necessary. Stark had ulterior motives in coming to the Dharma Center, all right. But they were much more basic: he just wanted his lover back. At least now I had figured that much out. Maybe I was becoming a sort of detective after all.
“It’s OK,” I said. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need you to make sure that the Rinpoche will be safe. With any luck, you’re not on these people’s radar screens yet. I’ve been watching. They don’t tend to associate women with competence. All the power positions are dominated by men.” Her eyes narrowed as she thought about it. “They don’t know you,” I explained, “and that gives us an advantage. You can do it.”
“Can we just wait for the cops?” she asked.
“I think things are gonna play out too fast. And there are too many loose ends…”
“What will you do?” And she looked at me searchingly.
“I’ve got to follow Yamashita’s lead,” I explained.
Simple really. You blunder around until someone makes a move, and then you fight back.
But I didn’t say it.
She saw it in my eyes. She gave my hand a squeeze. “We better get back in,” I told her, and my voice was husky with all the other things I should have said. I sent her in ahead of me and I slipped in a side door. Then we were swept along in the flow of events. Kita had arrived.
