The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (44 page)

Although most of the surviving Black Lotus members had been captured, some remained at large. Sano headed an ongoing effort to clean up this human scum.

“I was only following the true path of destiny.” Fanaticism shone on Noguchi’s face. “I’m an innocent victim of persecution by you, the evil destroyer who would wipe out all my people and condemn the world to eternal suffering!”

“Spare us the excuses.” Sano noticed a mark on the skin below Noguchi’s collarbone. He yanked open the man’s kimono, revealing scar tissue that didn’t quite obscure a tattooed Black Lotus symbol, and under it, another tattoo of a dragon.

“So you’ve joined the Mori,” Sano said, recognizing the gang’s crest. “Trust you to find another set of hoodlum friends after the Black Lotus sect disbanded. Where is Lightning?”

“I don’t know.” Noguchi viciously spat the words.

Sano shot out a hand, gripped the man’s throat, and squeezed hard. “Has he been here?”

Noguchi squealed in pain and fright. His eyes rolled, and he jerked away from Sano, but Hirata held him in place. Although Sano disliked using violence against witnesses, he had little compunction about coercing this man who’d stolen their lord’s weapons for the massacre at the Black Lotus Temple. Furthermore, Noguchi was his connection to the Mori, and Sano had neither time nor patience to waste.

“Tell me!” he demanded, digging his fingers into Noguchi’s windpipe.

His face purple, Noguchi struggled in Hirata’s grip and gasped for air.

“Have you seen Lightning?” Sano hated abusing his power; yet he could gladly choke the breath out of Noguchi.

Panic shone in Noguchi’s gaze. His voice emerged in a croak: “All right, I’ll tell you. Just please let me go!”

Sano and Hirata released him. He staggered, wheezing and coughing. “Lightning was here yesterday,” he rasped. “He took all the money from the cash box. But no one around here has seen him since. I swear that’s the truth!”

The letter came to Reiko soon after Sano went out to search for Lightning. She opened the bamboo scroll case that a castle messenger had delivered to the estate. The message inside was scrawled on cheap paper. Reiko read:

I’ve found Wisteria. If you want to see her, go to the noodle stand around the corner from the bathhouse, tell someone there to fetch me, and I’ll take you to where she is. Don’t wait too long, or she’ll be gone. And bring the money you promised me.

Yuya

Reiko was thrilled at this sign that Yuya wanted to help her and that Wisteria was alive after all, but suspicion tempered her hope of obtaining news that would benefit Sano. Yesterday, Yuya had seemed so averse to cooperating further that Reiko wondered at the motive behind the message. What had changed Yuya’s mind? Reiko paced swiftly around her chamber, holding the letter, as she debated what to do.

She feared walking into a trap, despite the lack of apparent reason for Yuya to hurt her. Reiko recognized this as a situation where instinct must yield to need, and decided to follow Yuya’s instructions rather than miss any opportunity to gain valuable facts. She had doubts about meeting Wisteria, and she hesitated to go on her own, but she had no time to consult Sano; she didn’t even know where he was, and she couldn’t dally while a chance to save him slipped away.

Reiko called a servant to bring two of Sano’s best detectives to her. Fortunately, they hadn’t yet joined the hunt for Lightning. When Detectives Marume and Fukida came to her, she showed them the message, then said, “Please organize a party of troops and take me to Yuya.”

As the detectives and soldiers escorted her palanquin out of the courtyard, Reiko glimpsed O-hana watching her somberly from the door. Her procession traveled fast through town, and soon Reiko alighted in a neighborhood of slum dwellings that tilted crookedly. A wind with a keen, icy edge blew debris down the street, rattled the buildings, and rippled puddles of sewage. While her entourage waited outside, Reiko entered the noodle stand, a narrow cubbyhole beside a grocer’s shop. There, a slatternly woman stirred boiling pots on a hearth. Children squabbled in a room behind the kitchen.

“I want to see Yuya,” said Reiko.

The woman nodded, then sent one of the children to the bathhouse. Reiko waited nervously. Soon Yuya slipped into the room. She wore a drab, threadbare cloak and an air of furtive excitement.

“Where is Lady Wisteria?” Reiko said at once.

Yuya responded with pouting lips and a martyred expression. “Buy me something to eat first,” she said, kneeling on the floor. “I missed my meal because of you.”

Impatience nettled Reiko, but she ordered a bowl of noodles in miso broth. They sat together while Yuya ate with maddening slowness.

“Last night, I woke up when someone tapped on my window and called my name,” Yuya said. “I looked outside and saw Wisteria in the alley. She was crying. I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ She said she needed my help and she didn’t have anyone else to turn to. Her face was all bruised and bloody.”

Grimacing, Yuya sucked up noodles. Reiko stifled the urge to hurry her. “Wisteria told me that she’d had a big fight with Lightning—the man who owns the bathhouse,” Yuya said. “He hurt her so bad, she was afraid for her life. She waited until he went out, then she ran away. She’d stolen some of his money, but she didn’t know where to go. She said she’d pay me if I would find her a place to stay. She begged so hard that I took her to an inn where she would be safe. She’s still there.”

“Can we go to her now?” Reiko said anxiously.

Yuya gave Reiko a sour look and held up her half-full bowl. “Wisteria says she’s tired of hiding. She wants to turn herself in and tell what she knows about the murder.”

“What does she know?” Reiko’s heart lurched; she leaned toward Yuya.

The prostitute smirked at her eagerness. “Wisteria saw Lightning kill Lord Mitsuyoshi. Afterward, Lightning took her out of Yoshiwara. She didn’t want to go with him, but he told her that unless she did, he would kill her.”

Reiko felt a rush of exultation, stanched by skepticism. While investigations often turned upon a stroke of luck, this news that would exonerate Sano seemed too good to be true.

“Wisteria hasn’t gone to the police because she’s afraid she’ll get in trouble,” Yuya continued, apparently unaware of Reiko’s doubt. “Whatever she says, people might think she’s lying to protect herself. With Lightning gone, everyone would just as soon blame her.”

The story made sense, and fabricating it would require more imagination than Reiko thought Yuya had; yet misgivings still restrained Reiko’s need to believe.

“I told Wisteria that you came to see me,” Yuya said. “I convinced her that if you talked with her and believed her story, you would convince your husband that she’s innocent. She agreed to surrender to you if the
sōsakan-sama
will help her.”

Setting down her empty bowl, Yuya raised her eyebrows at Reiko. When Reiko hesitated, Yuya added, “Lightning will be looking for Wisteria, and if he gets to her before you do, he’ll kill her.”

Reiko decided she had less to lose than to gain by taking Yuya at her word. If the story was true, Reiko could deliver Wisteria to Sano today. The courtesan would be safe from Lightning and the authorities, and Sano absolved from charges of treason and murder.

“All right,” Reiko said.

Yuya gave her a smug, conspiratorial smile and held out a hand. “Pay me first.”

“My escorts are coming with us,” Reiko said, taking a packet of money out of her sleeve.

The prostitute shrugged. “That’s fine with me,” she said, tucking the money inside her robes.

They left the noodle shop and climbed into the palanquin. “Go straight ahead four blocks, then turn right,” Yuya said.

Reiko conveyed these directions, and subsequent ones, to her escorts. As the procession wound through the streets, anticipation and anxiety coiled tight inside her. Curiosity about meeting a woman who’d been on intimate terms with Sano vied with dread of a hoax. Yuya lounged against the cushions, yet the sharpness of her gaze belied her body’s relaxed posture. Reiko alternated watching her companion and watching the scenery. Dingy neighborhoods that all looked alike made it hard for her to measure their progress.

“How much farther is it?” Reiko asked.

“We’re almost there,” Yuya said.

After almost an hour had passed, Reiko said with growing suspicion, “Do you really know where Wisteria is?”

“Of course I do.” Yuya bristled indignantly. “You’re a high-class lady, and I’m a lowly whore, but if you want Wisteria, you better be nice to me.”

The palanquin turned onto the main east-west road that crossed Edo. A mounted daimyo, escorted by many troops and attendants, filled the broad avenue. Pedestrians fell to their knees and bowed, while Reiko’s procession slowed behind the daimyo’s rear guardsmen. An inaudible sigh issued from Yuya; her body relaxed slightly. This tiny lapse of self-control struck ominous certainty into Reiko’s heart.

Yuya was taking her on an aimless ride. If they ever reached an inn, they would find no Wisteria, and Yuya would say the courtesan had run away. And Yuya was glad of a delay because she wanted the fraud to last as long as possible.

“Your story about Wisteria was a lie,” Reiko said, adamant in her conviction. “This is a trick.”

“No, it’s not.” Yuya regarded her with incredulity. “Why would I trick you?”

Suddenly Reiko’s amorphous fears crystallized. Incidents that had previously seemed to have neither relationship nor significance now fell into a chilling pattern. Yuya’s sudden readiness to cooperate; an uninvited friendship at an opportune time; strange behavior and a generous gesture with a hidden motive—all centered around Reiko’s memory of O-hana standing inside the estate while Reiko left it. Logic drew connections across gaps where facts were absent, forming a picture of a madwoman’s brilliant treachery.

“You want to lure me away from home,” Reiko said, stunned. “How much did she pay you?”

“Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But guilt quickened in Yuya’s heavy-lidded eyes, and she sat up straight. Now Reiko understood that the danger she’d sensed was not here, nor to her own person; she had never been the direct target of malice. The awful truth horrified her.

Grabbing Yuya’s wrist, Reiko demanded, “What is she doing while you occupy me?”

“Let go!” Yuya cried. She and Reiko struggled together, rocking the palanquin.“You’re talking nonsense. Why are you attacking me? Have you gone mad?”

“Tell me,” Reiko shouted, wild with panic.

Detective Marume rode up beside the palanquin. Peering through the window, he said, “What’s going on in there? Lady Reiko, are you all right?”

Reiko’s instincts blared a warning that no amount of reason could quell. She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she could guess the consequences. The street had cleared, and her procession speeded up, carrying her farther away from home, where she needed to be.

“Stop!” she called to Marume.

The procession halted. Yuya twisted out of Reiko’s grasp, pushed open the palanquin’s door, and jumped out. As she ran away down the avenue, the soldiers started chasing her.

“Never mind her,” Reiko shouted. “Take me home!”

The procession laboriously turned in the direction of Edo Castle. Reiko sat desperate and frantic, her heart pounding with the fear that she was making a mistake, yet transfixed by the certainty that she was right about everything, despite the lack of any proof.

She hoped she hadn’t thrown away her chance to solve the murder case and save Sano. She prayed she would arrive home in time to avert disaster.

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