The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (24 page)

Any child who had lost a mother might dream of her magical return. In my gentlest voice I told Takeo, "Let's sit down and talk this over. My apartment is nearby."

"No, I need to go home. I want to show you something tonight, when nobody is at the door to make a record of your visit. Tomorrow we'll go to Izu to look for some things in my family storehouse. You can drive, can't you?"

"Yes, but I'm busy tomorrow." I was also overwhelmed by his sudden, urgent flurry of demands. He was behaving irrationally. He had to be in shock.

"Very well, then, I won't force you to join me, but I'm getting that taxi." Takeo stepped into the road and lifted his arm to hail a car slowly driving down the street.

"I'm sure it's got passengers," I said, expecting the laws of rainy nighttime taxis to be in force. But the taxi was free. Its door swung open, and Takeo got in.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"The rich have all the luck," I said, worry mixing with irritation. The taxi would not have stopped for me. I just knew it.

"The Kayama Kaikan," Takeo told the driver, who did a double take in the rearview mirror. He'd recognized the billion-yen boy. Takeo didn't seem to notice; he fell into a silence, staring out the window at lights blurred by rain. I sat on the far side of the taxi seat, pushing wet strands of hair out of my face. We couldn't really discuss Takeo's mother in front of the taxi driver, but I was anxious to hear what Takeo had to say.

When we disembarked, my thoughts turned to how one entered the Kayama Kaikan after hours. Would Takeo press his fingertips against a panel that would then shoot open the doors, or would a microchip card get him in? I imagined a few James Bond-like possibilities.

To my surprise, the utterly modemrn glass- and- steel tower had a very old-fashioned side door. Takeo used a regular key to unlock it. As I caught the heavy door—at least it was fireproof steel—I let Takeo go ahead of me. I expected him to turn off an alarm system, but it turned out there was none.

"This building is about as secure as one of those cardboard boxes the homeless live in at Shinjuku Station," I told him. "Even my apartment is better than this. I have three locks on my door and you have just one."

"It's convenient for me to come and go, but I suppose you're right. I'll get the message to my father." Takeo opened a door along the hallway, and as frigid air rushed at me, I peered at tall buckets of flowers and branches. He said, "This is where we keep some flowers for classes. We tend to rely on daily deliveries, so there's not that much stock here."

The next room he showed had a humidifier, so it was as moist as the rainy evening outside, but not as cold as the refrigerated room. It was lined with floor- to- ceiling wooden shelves that were filled with labeled boxes. Takeo told me they held wooden ikebana vessels and ceremonial boxes that were used for entertaining.

"Is this where the Kayama ware was stored?" I asked, not seeing any empty spaces.

"Next room." As he snapped on the light in the next cool cell, he waved at a seven—foot-high-by-twenty-foot-wide section of shelving that was empty. "That's where the Kayama ware used to be."

"It's strange that your thief didn't leave the boxes behind to make it look as if nothing had been taken," I said.

"The Kayama ware is worth more with the boxes. It had our school stamp, the year, and the artist's signature."

"And people who buy special things expect custom boxes," I agreed. "I wonder why none of the staff noticed the containers were gone. Who goes into these rooms?"

"Almost all the employees. If you want to make a flower arrangement for the receptionist's desk, for example, you'd come here to pick up a suiban instead of taking one from the classroom stock. These pieces are older and more interesting than the pieces used for teaching. That's why we like to use them in ceremonial places."

The next room he showed was not humidified and contained short, thin boxes. "These are my mother's poetry: or rather, works that she copied. She was a calligrapher. She liked to copy haiku, especially those with flower themes."

I felt as cold as when I'd been in the refrigerated room. "Has somebody been sending you haiku?"

Takeo stared at me. Then he walked quietly behind me and closed the door. When he came back, he said softly, "How did you know?"

"I've gotten two under my apartment door in the last two days. But my aunt's been getting them for years."

"It's been three months. It's usually in a rice-paper envelope tucked under the wiper blade on the Range Rover. Because the vehicle is parked behind the building, I just assumed the poetry was coming from a secretary or worker."

Someone who had a crush on him. I bet that was a common occurrence. "Where else have you found poems?"

"The day that Sakura died, one was slipped under my office door. It was by Issa and read something like: '
A daimyo! And what thing makes him get off his horse? Cherry blossoms do
.'"

"A daimyo is a nobleman," I said. "Maybe the poem is suggesting that Sakura's death has thrown an important guy such as yourself off your metaphorical horse. In this case, the horse should be swapped for a Range Rover."

"If that's the meaning—and I really don't know—it could be that my sister sent it. You know that we don't get along that well."

"Why?"

Takeo busied himself straightening the boxed scrolls on the shelves before answering. "When my mother was alive, Natsumi and I were together all day long. After the death, we started drifting apart. We were put in separate bedrooms, which I suppose makes sense for a boy and girl growing up, but we lost our connection. I started studying ikebana—wanting to be like my father, I suppose—and Natsumi was more interested in playing with little girls."

"Does she have an interest in haiku?" I asked.

"I don't think so. I mean, not in composing the poetry. Were the haiku you received original?"

"No. Right after I was poisoned, I was sent a haiku by Basho that said, '
Intoxicated—slumbering amid pinks laid out on a rock.
' This afternoon I received a poem that said '
The breezes of spring push the beautiful girl, arousing anger.
' I haven't found out the poet's identity yet."

"My mother's calligraphy is organized by the flower, so I am able to show you the first poem you recited." He pulled out a long, slender wooden box and tucked it under his arm. "We probably don't have a scroll illustrating the second haiku because it doesn't mention flowers. Everything here must relate to ikebana."

Takeo opened a door that led to the stairs. I jogged up the first flight but then abruptly remembered Takeo had been in a car crash.

"We could take the elevator instead. Nine is pretty far up," I said, looking at him slowly proceeding upward.

"Impossible. The light would come on, and if Natsumi comes home from her date, she will see the light panel showing where we're going. It wouldn't be a problem for me to be seen going upstairs, but you wouldn't get away with it."

We continued up the stairs, Takeo keeping hold of the railing while I hovered by his side. I was practically as tired as him by the time we reached the 9th floor and entered the main building. Only a red EXIT sign illuminated the hallway; our shadows tailed us, leaping against the walls in a most sinister way. I was glad when Takeo unlocked his office and turned on his desk light. My gaze went around the room, which had been slightly straightened since my visit that afternoon. The magazines had been collected into a neat pile, and a small arrangement of camellias with insect-bitten leaves graced his desk.

"This is the picture," Takeo said, holding one of his mother playing with him and Natsumi at age four. Reiko Kayama was wearing an orange and yellow kimono patterned with the moon and stars, just like Mr. Ishida's visitor.

"Mr. Ishida should see it," I said. "Will you let me borrow it to show him?"

"His eye is injured, Rei. Have you forgotten?"

"He's got another one that's still working! Once he feels better, he will be able to make a good guess at whether your mother and the consignor are the same person."

"I don't want to give you that picture. It's the only one I have," Takeo said.

"I'll take care of it," I said. "I've never lost any of my consignments."

"Unlike me. I'm sorry to tell you this, but the Kayama ware container that you gave me earlier tonight smashed when my car hit the pole. I was too depressed to bother removing the shards."

I felt for him, but I knew we had to move on. "It's all right. Will you show me your mother's calligraphy scroll?"

Takeo cleared off the remaining items on his desk and unrolled the scroll, weighting each end with a kenzan. I joined in his scrutiny of Reiko Kayama's rendering of the 'Slumbering amid pinks' poem. Her calligraphy was gracefully rounded and similar to that on the haiku that I'd received. But the scroll looked different from the note I'd gotten. I couldn't pinpoint the differences, because Aunt Norie had destroyed the note.

"Even though I don't have the copy of the 'pinks' haiku anymore, I think the writer is different from your mother. Look at the other note." l pulled out the poem I'd just received, about a beautiful girl being pushed.

Takeo read it silently, and I saw him shudder.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Just a bit cold."

"Do you have any other examples of your mother's everyday handwriting?" I was still studying the scroll. In addition to the three short lines of writing, there was a small watercolor illustration of a pink flower head lying on a bed of gray river pebbles.

Takeo shook his head. "She was never separated from us, so there were no letters. I imagine that my father might have some letters, but I couldn't ask him." He added, "Your aunt might have something from my mother."

"Aunt Norie was just a normal student in the school. Why would she have letters from your mother?"

Takeo slowly settled into his chair, and I remembered again that he'd just been in an accident. He was silent for a minute and then said, "Do you remember when we went to the izakaya for a beer and I asked you to give me some information about your aunt? You seemed to think I was trying to blame Sakura's murder on her. It wasn't that. I'm interested in how she and my mother got along."

"Why?"

"There was a bad feeling between your aunt and some people here. The rumor was that her teaching certificates were always speeded through, she always gets the best placement at exhibitions, and she was even offered a good teaching position within headquarters."

"But she never took any paid position," I protested. "She dropped out of flower arranging to spend more time when my cousin Chika was born."

"How old is Chika?"

I thought carefully. I hadn't seen Tom's little sister more than once or twice in the last few years, because she was studying in Kyoto. "She's twenty-three."

"An interesting coincidence. My mother died twenty-three years ago," Takeo said. "Chika's birth was a convenient excuse for Norie to leave. Sakura once hinted that maybe . . . Chika was not really a Shimura. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

I turned away from Takeo and toward the window, the black night sparkling with rain and little lights from the windows of other buildings. I remembered the mirrored glass of the skyscraper and realized that now, because it was dark outside and light where we were, people could see in. I wondered why there were no shades in the room, nothing to hide me as I struggled to maintain my self-control.

"Sakura hated Norie," I said. "She would say anything to hurt her."

"I'm sorry," Takeo said from his distant armchair.

I asked, "If your mother is alive, why would she not be with your family?"

Takeo sounded weary. "Twins are a lot of trouble, don't you think? Maybe we were too much for her."

"I'm sure that's not the case. The picture of your mother holding you shows such love. Look at her face." As I spoke, I remembered how Lila Braithwaite's children had overwhelmed me. Raising twins was probably as challenging as raising three children. But surely Takeo's mother wasn't the kind who would run away.

Takeo continued. "Or what if—because of my father's feeling for your Aunt Norie—my mother decided that she wanted to just leave the marriage? Divorcing him would be something the Kayama family wouldn't allow. Mistresses are considered all right—my grandfather and all my great-grandfathers had them. People say that my father hasn't remarried because it's too enjoyable to be an unmarried man."

"But didn't somebody find your mother's body? Surely that's irrefutable evidence she died."

"The coroner could have been bribed. He could have helped, maybe even providing the body of somebody anonymous who had died."

Takeo really wanted to believe that his mother was alive. The compassion I'd felt for him earlier swelled again. How could I get him to give up his ghost?

"Okay, say that your mother is still alive and she's been sending Norie poems all along to make her feel bad about breaking up the marriage. Why on earth would your mother send menacing haiku to my aunt? Or me?"

"She doesn't want history to repeat itself," Takeo said grimly.

"No need to worry. Your father has seen me only once, and it was when I was vomiting at his ikebana exhibition. He's not likely to ask me out."

Takeo snorted. "My father's not the one at risk of capitulation."

"Who is, then?" This entirely Japanese conversation about parents, love, and death was confusing me. I turned away from him to look out the window, thinking over his last words.

Takeo came up and stood directly behind me. When he spoke, I felt his breath on the nape of my neck. "Maybe you thought I was gay. Because I like flowers."

"No. I know gay men," I said sharply. I was surprised by Takeo's revelation, but not by the way it made me feel. With the warmth of his breath on my skin, I felt my cold, celibate self start to thaw.

Takeo's hands touched my shoulders very lightly, and a current shot through me as his hands stroked down my bare arms. "It's been tough. I've grown up in this sterile tower with a father who won't talk to me, a sister with a shopping addiction, and a bunch of middle-aged women who want to be my mother. You've been the youngest, realest woman who has ever made it past the doorman."