The Nicholas Linnear Novels (85 page)

Barefooted, he went upon the
tatami
, performing the
ritsurei
, bowing before the
sensei.
Then he presented Pukashigi’s letter.

Kenzo seemed to take a long time reading. Not once did he look up at Nicholas. At length, he carefully folded the sheets, returning them to their envelope. He put the packet aside and, placing his hands on the
tatami,
bent forward in the
zarei,
the sitting bow. Folding his legs beneath him, Nicholas returned the salutation.

And just at the far apex of his bow, the short stick came hurtling at him. There was just the hint of a blur at the periphery of his vision and if he had taken the time to think, he would surely have been rendered unconscious.

Instead, his right arm lifted reflexively even as his torso shifted to the right, away from the trajectory of the oncoming attack.

The stick struck the leading edge of his forearm, bouncing end over end like a pinwheel, but already Kenzo had leapt forward, using Nicholas’ own anticipated momentum as he swung to the left, using a punishing
shomen uchi,
a straight blow to the head to try to bring Nicholas to the mat.

In so doing Kenzo had grabbed hold of his right wrist and immediately Nicholas used an immobilization—
ayonkyo
—a twist of his own wrist so that now he was gripping the
sensei
’s left forearm. He dug his thumb deeply into the embedded nerve center running up the inside of the arm. But instead of backing away from the pressure, which would have allowed Nicholas to bring the now outstretched arm into alignment, Kenzo moved into the paralyzing hold, sacrificing one arm in order not to lose the contest.

A second short stick appeared from somewhere and he slammed it down hard on Nicholas’ shoulder. Nicholas gave up the
yonkyo
but instead of moving into a second immobilization as Kenzo suspected he would, he employed an
atemi
—a percussive—moving out of the
aikido
discipline as the
sensei
already had.

The stiffened fingertips jammed themselves into the space just below Kenzo’s collarbone, digging for the nerve juncture there. The
sensei
’s head jerked spastically up and away and Nicholas bore down.

But now the short stick was between their straining bodies, hammering against Nicholas’ rib cage. Nicholas moved in even closer, aware that Kenzo was attempting to swing the stick in a short arc in order to assault the muscles directly over the heart. This he must not allow.

He tried two quick dorsal
kites
before switching back to immobilizations. Nothing worked, and slowly the wooden stick began to arc its way closer to the left side of his chest. Power was slipping away from him and he felt his centrism now as a separate entity, far away and almost useless.

He cursed himself, knowing that he would lose. Loss of sleep, the time imbalance had conspired to sap his concentration. What reserves he still possessed were being rapidly depleted by the repeated
tambo
attacks. Blood was singing in his ears, bringing with it the first telltale signs of disorientation. Physical coordination would soon follow, he knew, unless he did something to forestall it.

And then a lesson in
kendo
leapt into his mind and, remembering Musashi’s Red Leaves Cut, he set his spirit toward gaining control of Kenzo’s stick.

Instead of defending himself, he broke his hands completely free and rushed toward the
tambo
attacks. In a blur he grasped the slippery cylinder, twisting it down and to the left, breaking the set of the
sensei
’s wrist as he did so, disrupting the energy flow long enough to deliver a vicious liver
kite.

Kenzo rocked back on his knees, swaying, and Nicholas followed through only to come up against the stone wall of the
sensei
’s calloused fist. Pain flamed through him and he gritted his teeth, pulling inward and down, digging the heel of his hand into Kenzo’s shoulder, using the other’s momentum to rock him off his haunches.

The moment the
sensei
’s shoulder touched the
tatami
, Nicholas broke off. His torso was bathed in sweat, his heart pounded, and with each breath he took, pain etched itself through his tissues.

He thought about how close he had come to defeat.

Ichiro Kagami was in a surly mood. He was a man of unusually calm and controlled disposition, a virtue that had awarded him with the vice presidency of finance for Sato Petrochemicals.

But today he had been unable to concentrate on any of the fine points being hammered out between this
kobun
and the American microchip company. He was enormously grateful when Sato-san had given the attending executives the signal to leave the proceedings before his lack of concentration became a liability.

After almost an hour of staring out the window at the misty rain forming in odd prismatic patterns against the windows behind him, he had had enough. He swiveled around, his fingertip stabbing at the intercom. He told his secretary to cancel all his upcoming appointments for the rest of the day. He told her where he could be found if an unforeseen emergency required Sato to get in touch with him.

Then he got up. Tokyo looked bleak and steel gray, all the gaiety of
hanami
that prevailed throughout the city for the past several days dissipated by the weather. But the cherry blossom viewing had provided no happiness for Kagami this year.

His face was a bleak mask as he walked out of his office. The soft lights, the beautiful
ukiyo-e
prints did not soothe his mind. He came to the iron-clad door and pushed through. Inside, in the locker room, he began to disrobe.

Everything would be fine, Kagami told himself, were it not for his brother, Toshiro. Brother-in-law, really, if the truth be told, he thought sourly. But Kagami’s wife was
hera-mochi,
currently enjoying meting out the ordeals she had had to endure from Kagami’s mother. She held the pursestrings. Several notches too tightly, he thought, as he padded naked along the wooden slats, into the baths.

While a young woman, her bland, flat face beaded in sweat from the heat and the exertion, cleansed him, Kagami thought about his wife. It was not that she begrudged him his
geisha.
Did not the monthly bills come to her and did she not pay them without a word of protest precisely on the fifteenth of every month? She did all that a wife should. And yet the manner in which she doled out tiny portions of the salary, the
oseibo
and
ochugen
—the year-end and midyear gifts from those in his department currying favor and promotion—left a bad taste in his mouth and, more often than not, sent him scurrying to Anmitsu, where all his favorite women resided.

Yet it was Toshiro even more than his wife who got under his skin, Kagami reflected as he transferred to the second bath.

Alone, Kagami inhaled the steam rising off the surface of the water. It was so hot that when he moved his limbs, even a little, they began to burn.

Toshiro was a farmer and, as such, he was far wealthier than Kagami himself was. Of course he did not have the plethora of benefits that Sato Petrochemicals provided its family of employees. But still. At year’s end Toshiro’s bank account swelled to unnatural proportions. And it irked Kagami no end that, at least in part, he was subsidizing his brother-in-law.

Kagami thought of the idiocy of it. Japan was no more than 30 percent rural and dropping fast. Yet the farmers still held as much political power as they did just after World War II when the country was 70 percent rural. That was because there had been no electoral redistribution and the Liberal Democratic Party, which had held power almost constantly since then, did all they could to keep the farm vote loyal. That meant subsidizing the inefficient farmers.

Kagami had read in
Time
magazine that the average American farm was 450 acres. By comparison, the average Japanese farm was 2.9 acres. How was that for efficiency? Kagami had to snort in derision.

And as if that weren’t enough, there was the rice problem. Japanese farmers produced much more per year than the country could possibly consume. Since this short-grained variety was not favored worldwide and because to export it would require a second subsidy to bring down the price that the first government subsidy raised, the excess went totally to waste.

Kagami knew that the government spent over twenty billion dollars per year on such subsidies. Much of that money came from selling imported wheat to Japanese millers at exorbitant prices. But even that wasn’t enough. Tax money as well was used, shortchanging housing and much-needed roadwork throughout the country.

And now, the greatest insult of all was that Toshiro had come, hat in hand, for a loan of money. Kagami knew that Toshiro was a profligate. He spent whatever he made and more. It was often said that the Japanese were good savers. One could certainly not judge that by Toshiro’s behavior. Women—he was a widower—and gambling had become his passions. He had hired others to run his farms and they had been derelict in their duty.

At least that was how Toshiro had put it. Kagami snorted again. More likely, Toshiro had been remiss in his hiring. It served him right, and Kagami would have derived much clandestine pleasure from his brother-in-law’s plight had it not been for the request for the loan.

Of course, there was no question about giving it to him. Kagami’s wife had been quite clear about that. “You have no choice,” she had stated flatly after Toshiro had left last night. “He is your brother. There are family ties to think of. Duty.” Her eyes flashed. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of such basic matters.”

It was no good telling her that had the situation been reversed they would not have seen one sen from Toshiro, who cared for no one but himself. After all, had he ever sent a gift for Ken’s graduation or Tamiko’s thirteenth birthday? Oh, the children never knew. Presents arrived for them on the appropriate days, ostensibly from Toshiro. But Kagami knew that his wife secretly traveled to Daimaru to purchase them herself—with his money.

Kagami closed his eyes, felt the heavy pulse of his blood through his veins. It was really too much. It strained the boundaries of duty.

Sighing, he rose and walked, dripping, across the room, down the short hall and into the steam room. He wanted to be quite relaxed before his massage.

As Kagami sat down on the tiled bench and put his head back against the moisture-streaked wall, he thought about a massage he had once gotten in Korea. Business had dictated he travel there in his younger years, but nothing could get him back now. He shuddered inwardly at the recollection of their form of massage. Torture, more like it. He should have known better. The Koreans were barbarians in everything they tried to do. The Tokugawa Shōgun had called them “garlic-eaters.” That was in 1605, and they had progressed not at all since then. Except that they had learned how to take graft from the Americans. Dirty people without a sense of honor.

Kagami shook his head, wanting to clear his mind of Koreans and Toshiro and all other negative influences. This had begun as an evil day, but he was determined that it should end otherwise.

The steam pipe to his left hissed and coughed; new mist began to form in the room. The heat rose and Kagami began to sweat. He had forgotten to cool off in the shower before coming in here. He had Toshiro to thank for that as well.

It was just as well. He put his hands on his belly. Too much fat there these days. Maybe his extra sweating would do him some good. His eyes closed. He was completely relaxed.

The door opened. Kagami did not open his eyes but he was aware of a brief lessening of the intense heat, a momentary thinning of the humid atmosphere. Then the swirling clouds of steam enveloped him once more.

He did not wonder who had come in. Members of the upper-echelon management team were in and out of this section of the floor all through the day and even on into the night after the rest of the building was closed and dark. The men rarely spoke to one another here, understanding implicitly the nature of the renewing process that ultimately led to a more productive workday for all of them.

Kagami felt a presence, no more than a shadow perhaps. As it passed, something caused him to open his eyes. He could not immediately say what it was, a premonition perhaps or a subtle change in the environment.

He saw a figure across the room, made indistinct by the steam. Mist seemed to flow around the form, changing its shape even as Kagami looked.

The figure was standing and now it came forward in an odd, gliding gait that seemed all liquid, as if the being before him had no bones or hard muscle. Kagami wiped the sweat from his eyes. He felt the absurd urge to pinch himself to make certain he had not somehow fallen asleep, lulled by the heat and the peacefulness.

For now he could discern much of the figure, and it appeared to him as if it might be female. But surely not! he admonished himself. Even the blind Taiwanese girls were forbidden in the steam room.

Kagami’s mouth dropped open and he gasped. Appearing out of the layers of mist was the unmistakable patch of female pubic hair, dark as night, beads of water clinging in its curls like pearls on the bed of the sea. This is monstrous, he thought indignantly. What gross breach of protocol. I must lodge a protest with Sato-san.

The naked hips swung back and forth minutely as the woman came toward him and Kagami felt the first faint stirrings in his lower belly. There was something so intensely sexual, made all the more powerful because there was an absence of flaunting. The sexuality seemed to have an existence all its own, lacing the steamy atmosphere so that, despite himself, Kagami felt the blood pooling in his loins, the telltale thickening of his penis.

And all the while his mind was outraged, for with the excitement came the unmistakable—yet totally unfamiliar—sensation of being goaded into desire against his will.

Now he could see more of the torso, the high cone-shaped breasts, the dark nipples hard and distended, the flat, slightly curved stomach.