Tengu (16 page)

“Another was
the Water Flute, a magical wind instrument about which there are many curious
legends in Shikoku. Its music was said to induce self-destructive madness; and
I can tell you that it was actually tried, during the American landings on
Eniwetok atoll. There is no record, however, of its success or failure.
Presumably, it failed.”

Kappa had
paused for a while to regain his breath. He had begun to pant very hard; the
young girl had quickly and quietly approached the basketwork throne with a
porcelain dish of sake.
Mr.

Esmeralda had
tried to see if he would lift his mask to drink, but the girl had carefully
placed herself between him and her master, so that the ritual of his
refreshment was completely obscured.

The ferry had
docked now at Wakayama, and Mr. Esmeralda glanced up at the ceiling of the
cabin as the shuffling footsteps of disembarking passengers crossed the deck.
He had been supposed to meet one of his agents on the pier, but he made no
attempt to leave the cabin.

At last, Kappa
had said, “The most secret and most effective of all the programs, however, was
that of the Tengu. It was carried out in Hiroshima in 1945 by Toshiro Mitoma,
an extraordinary religious ascetic who believed implicitly in all the magic and
demonology of ancient Japan, and who was often consulted during the course of
the war by Japanese officers of field and flag rank.

Admiral Nagumo
trusted him as implicitly as Hitler trusted Dr. Morrell.”

“What, exactly,
was the Tengu?” Mr. Esmeralda had asked.

“The Tengu was–is–the most terrible of all Japanese demons.
There are stories of Tengus going back to the eighth century, and even earlier.
They are related to the evil which manifests itself in all black birds, like
crows and ravens and rooks. But they are capable of possessing a man’s body,
taking him over like a fit of madness, and giving him extraordinary strength
and resistance to attack. A man possessed by a Tengu could be hacked into tiny
pieces with a sword before he would give up. And even when they have been
destroyed, Tengu-men have remarkable regenerative powers. If you are looking
for a Western comparison, I suppose you could say that the Tengu is like a
zombie, except that a zombie is already dead and a Tengu can hardly ever be
killed.”

Mr. Esmeralda
had said, “You’ll excuse me for smiling.”

“You find this
difficult to believe?”

“I have my own
superstitions. My own little foibles,” Mr. Esmeralda had said. “I try not to
catch sight of the back of my head in a mirror. I do my best not to spill salt.
But, Mr. Kappa, I really cannot invest any belief in ancient demons.”

Kappa had said
to one of his aides, “Give him the papers.” One of the young Japanese had come
forward and silently handed Mr. Esmeralda a plastic envelope containing what
looked like a military report sheet.

“What is this?”
Mr. Esmeralda had asked.

“Read it,”
Kappa had insisted.

It was a Xerox
copy of a top-secret memorandum from USMC Intelligence Guam, dated October 17,
1944;

The failure of
the attack on Cape Matatula on Tutuila Island on August 25 was due entirely to
the presence on the Japanese side of no fewer than 10 but more than 12
individual troops wearing white masks and carrying no weapons but swords and
knives. Reliable reports from five reputable career officers have indicated
that these individual troops were able to walk through heavy enfilading rifle
fire unharmed, and that they were responsible for the deaths of at least of our
own men. Some of our men were killed by the Japanese soldiers’ bare hands,
extremely brutally, although not in the style generally known as karate or
kung
fit. One of the Japanese troops was set afire by a
Marine Corps sergeant operating a flame-thrower, and yet he continued to attack
our positions and succeeded in strangling and killing two Marines while
actually ablaze. Comprehensive accounts of what occurred were obtained from 15
officers and men during debriefing on USS Oxford, and these are attached.
Meanwhile it is suggested that priority be given to intelligence investigation
of these special Japanese troops, whom we have codenamed “Hogs.”

Mr. Esmeralda
had handed the plastic envelope back without a word.

“Well?” Kappa
had asked him breathily.

“Well, what?
All that happened a very long time ago. Men make some very strange mistakes
when they are fighting battles. Perhaps all this talk of special Japanese
soldiers was nothing more than an excuse to cover up the fact that the American
Marines lost their nerve under fire, and had to retreat.”

Kappa had
laughed. “You are being deliberately stubborn.”

“Perhaps,” Mr.
Esmeralda had replied.
“But why not?
I have nothing to
gain by associating myself with you. And, frankly, I find the idea of it
extremely unpleasant.”

“You forget
that I will mutilate you if you refuse,” Kappa had whispered.

Mr. Esmeralda
had looked around him. The young Japanese in their impenetrable black masks
were tense and poised, and he had been in no doubt at all that if he tried to
escape they would catch him in a flash, and treat him without hesitation to
whatever tortures Kappa might direct.

Mr. Esmeralda
disliked the idea of working for a shriveled quadriplegic in a basketwork
chair; but on the other hand he disliked the idea of being parted from his
penis even more. He had said quietly, “You want me to smuggle your Doctor
Gempaku into the United States, and provide him with research facilities? You
want me to help him create more of these Tengus, is that it?”

Kappa had said,
“I admire your quickness.”

“But what is
this all in aid of?” Mr. Esmeralda had insisted. “What exactly do you expect
these Tengus to do?”

“Just one
thing,” Kappa had said. “Exact revenge on the American people for what they did
in Hiroshima.’’

Now, at the
house in Laurel Canyon, Mr. Esmeralda was once more entering the presence of
the malformed Kappa. Here, Kappa had been laid out in a chromium-and-canvas
cot, his body mercifully covered by a sheet and his heavy masked head propped up
on pillows. There were two televisions suspended from the ceiling on
amateurishly homemade gimbals and tape recorders and telephones within easy
reach, all adapted for use by someone with the severest of handicaps. The room
itself was hung with white cotton drapes and lit only by candles, a nest of
them on a small white table. There were no pictures on the walls, no flowers,
no miniature trees, none of the decorative art that Mr. Esmeralda expected to
see in a Japanese room. And there was that pervasive smell of human flesh that
wasn’t quite dead but wasn’t quite alive, either.

“I hear that
things have been going dangerously awry,” Kappa said, his eyes glittering
through the holes in his mask.

“You could say
that things haven’t been going as they were planned to go,” Mr. Esmeralda
replied with great caution. “But, when one is asked to hire dispensable people,
one sometimes has to make do with second best. The best people are
indispensable.”

“Nobody is
indispensable,” said Kappa.

“Good wheelers
and dealers are indispensable,” Mr. Esmeralda argued, “Especially when one is
obliged to import dozens of illegal Japanese immigrants, along with whole
crates of ancient artifacts and God knows how many live Japanese animals and
birds. One can’t expect miracles, Kapp.”

“Do not fail
me,” whispered Kappa.

Mr. Esmeralda
took out a pale lavender handkerchief and patted his sweating neck. “The last
time I spoke to Doctor Gempaku, he said that everything was progressing quite
well. We had difficulty with the first Tengu, I know, but by definition they
aren’t easily controllable.”

“The man
Sennett remains alive.”

“It was an
understandable mistake. Yoshikazu was given a house number, and it turned out
that the number was posted on a concrete pillar between Sennett’s house and the
girl’s house. The Tengu was directed to the wrong house, and there’s nothing we
can do about it. It’s too late.”

Kappa was
silent for a while. Then he said, “You are sure that Sennett is the last
remaining member of the naval intelligence team?”

“Quite sure.
The only other person who might conceivably
understand what is happening is Admiral Knut Thorson, formerly of the Naval
Intelligence Command; and poor Admiral Thorson is currently in an acute-care
hospital at Rancho Encino. Everyone else who might have known what happened,
and why, is long dead.”

“You didn’t
speak of this Admiral Thorson before.”

“There was no
need to. He suffered a stroke. His doctors say that he will probably never
speak again.”

“PmbaUyr

“You don’t want
me to send a Tengu to a hospital, to...”

“Do it,” Kappa
commanded.

“But-”

‘‘Do itAnd
ensure that you deal with Sennett as well.’’

Mr. Esmeralda
looked around him, unhappy. “All right,” he agreed at last.
“If
you say so.
But if your plan works out the way you want it to, it
doesn’t seem to me that there’s going to be very much need to worry about
Sennett, or Thorson, or about anybody else.”

Kappa rolled
his masked head away from Mr. Esmeralda and said in a muffled voice, “What is
going to happen to .the United States within the next few weeks must be a
devastating mystery. They must never know why it happened, or how. It must seem
like the revenge of God. If they were to discover that it was I who had
initiated it, it would all seem explicable. They would be able to comprehend
it; and in comprehending it, they would gradually be able to repair their
morale and their spirit. That is what I specifically do not wish to happen. I
wish this to be a blow of divine rage, from which the Americans will take years
and years to recover. I want them to feel that they have been condemned to
hell.”

Mr. Esmeralda
thoughtfully tugged at his mouth with his hand. Quite illogically, he found
himself thinking about Eva Crowley. There was something helpless and bruised
about her; something which gave him the urge to punish her and degrade her even
more. But, he knew that he would have to treat her very carefully. He had other
plans for Eva Crowley, apart from bed and his own particular brand of Colombian
seduction. Eva Crowley was Mr. Esmcralda’s life-insurance policy.

S
ergeant Skrolnik was dozing over his typewriter that afternoon
when Detective Pullet came into his office, tripped over the wastebasket,
tipped over his styrofoam cup of cold coffee, and knocked a stack of law books
off the” filing cabinet onto the floor.

“What the
helfi” Skrolnik demanded grumpily. His eyes were puffy, and he felt as if an
armadillo had been sleeping in his mouth. Then he said, “Oh. It’s you.”

Pullet dabbed
ineffectually at the spilled coffee with a crumpled-up piece of yellow legal
paper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were resting.”

Skrolnik gave
Pullet a distinctly old-fashioned look, and sniffed. “I never rest. You should
know that by now. I was simply seeking inspiration behind tactically closed
eyelids.”

“Did you find
any?” asked Pullet. He was obviously pleased with himself about something. He
picked up the law books, stacked them back on top of the filing cabinet, and
frowned in irritation as they all clattered back to the floor again.

“Inspiration?
No, not really,” said Skrolnik. “But I did
mentally marshal a number of interesting facts.”

“Tell me,” said
Pullet. “Sir,” he added when Skrolnik -glanced across at him in disapproval.”

“Well,” said
Skrolnik, “one of the most interesting facts is that when Officer Russo first
caught sight of the van on Hollywood Boulevard, it was already speeding. That
we know from the girl behind the counter at the drugstore where the officer
stopped for antacid tablets. Now, why was it speeding, when there was no
apparent pursuit, and when it contained a man who obviously wanted to do as
little as possible to attract attention–since he had already torn Sherry Cantor
into small pieces?”

Pullet nodded,
and kept up his “yes, I’m interested” face as brightly as he could, although
Skrolnik could sense that he was absolutely bursting to make a startling
announcement of his own.

“The point is,”
Skrolnik went on, “the point is that something must have been wrong. So wrong
that the driver of the van was prepared to risk almost anything to get our
suspect out of town as fast as possible, and off to wherever he was going. That
could fit in with your orangutan theory.

Maybe the
murderer was actually a wild ape, and his tranquilizers were wearing off. But
if the orangutan was tranquilized, how did it kill Sherry Cantor? So what we
have to look at is this...”

Detective
Pullet couldn’t contain his excitement any longer. He reached into his frayed
tweed sportscoat and produced, with a flourish, a folded-up poster.

‘‘You told me
to think laterally,’’ he said. “Well, this is where lateral thinking got me.”

The poster
showed a hideous white masklike face, with a grinning red gash of a mouth.

Underneath, it
said, bright bros. grand circus, one week only,
anaheim
.

“A circus?”
asked Skrolnik, wrinkling up his nose.

“Listen,”
Pullet enthused, “I thought of every situation in which a man wears or appears
to wear a white mask. The white mask is crucial. It was seen by three
independent witnesses, and all their descriptions are very similiar.
Well...
 
people don’t wear white masks
very often. Not full-face masks.
A firefighter maybe.
A skier.
Maybe a ski mask would account for the pattern one
of the witnesses said he saw on the suspect’s forehead. But then I thought,
supposing the mask wasn’t a mask at all, but simply makeup, greasepaint? Who
wears the white face?
The clown in the circus.