The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (30 page)

"And a daughter who breaks traffic laws. The iemoto must be ashamed!" Mr. Waka said. "I wonder how much longer until he removes her from the family register."

"Don't make me laugh," I said to Mr. Waka. "I've laughed too much already on this crazy afternoon."

"Laughing is good for the health, and so is this new gum made by Lotte! It's a mixture of cherry blossoms and St. Johns wort that can freshen the breath while fighting depression. Won't you try some?"

I needed to maintain full alertness, so after I left the Family Mart I spat the gum into its paper wrapping and looked for a place to throw it away. There were a few more trash cans around since the cherry blossom parties had gotten into full swing, so I pitched my tiny bit of litter into one near the park.

"O-nee-san." A drunken laborer lying on a blanket under a tree called me sister in the way men did with girls they wanted to pick up. "Come have a beer. You look like you're ready for a nap—heh, heh."

"Yes, take a rest with us!"

I knew the men were harmless enough, but they had noticed what I'd forgotten when I'd left the apartment—that I was still wearing my pajama bottoms. I looked down at the pants' faded pink-and-green-checked print, wondering why Mr. Waka hadn't commented on them.

All I could do was put my chin in the air in the best imitation of Natsumi Kayama that I could muster, and pass. Laughter followed me like steam curling out of Mr. Waka's pot of oden.

I longed to run, but that would only inspire more hilarity, so I maintained a steady amble past the Yanaka Teashop, glancing in the window and hoping not to see Richard or anyone else that I knew. He wasn't there, but a pair of college-age girls pointed at my pants and giggled. I acknowledged them with a nod and continued on and around the corner to my apartment. Inside, I locked the door and collapsed. I poured myself a beer then and toasted the end of a very bad day.

Loaded up at 6 A.M. on Sunday morning, I drove to the Togo Shrine and discovered that I'd been assigned a spot near the exit. Sadly, this meant most of the market shoppers had spent their money by the time they came around to me. But some people tarried, and after two hours I'd made about twenty thousand yen—approximately $160. At nine o'clock, when I was counting my cash, I noticed an old man with a patch over one eye trailing past. I called out his name, and Mr. Ishida stopped.

"I was looking for you, but I have only one eye to see from," he apologized, stooping to talk with me. We must have looked like two old-time villagers hovering over the old blue-and-white hibachi.

"How is your eye?" I asked.

"I still have a headache, and my vision is blurred. The doctors tell me it will take time to heal." He lowered his voice so the other dealers wouldn't hear. " I lent you the van because I wanted you to succeed in this venture, but now I'm wondering whether it was such a good idea. It's sad to see a purveyor of fine antiques sitting on a tarpaulin and bargaining! Maybe you should have asked someone else to do the selling for you. How about your friend Richard Randall?"

"Richard's more of a shopper than a seller," I said, not wanting to explain how troubled our relationship had become. "Why don't you sit down for a moment? There's something I want to show you." I unzipped my money belt and withdrew the photograph of Takeo's mother. "Imagine this woman twenty years later. Do you think she's the one who came into your shop?"

Mr. Ishida studied it for a long time, bringing it close to and away from his face. "The kimono is the same, but I am not sure. This young woman is so lovely. I don't think she would grow up to look like a typical middle-aged lady."

"Okay, next photo." I rummaged in my backpack and located a Kayama School brochure I'd been given when I started my studies. The brochure contained a picture of Sakura cutting flowers and the caption,
'A flower master shares wisdom.
'

Mr. Ishida handled the brochure the same way he had handled the portrait of Takeo's mother. His face was expressionless, but after a minute he nodded. "This could be the woman I saw, but I am not certain. My vision is not good now. Looking at the picture hurts my eye."

"I apologize. I'm asking you to do too much." Feeling guilty, I put away the picture and brochure.

"Actually, my eye is tired because of some concentrated studies I was doing half an hour ago," he said. "Around the corner, where the better dealers are, a plate sold that was remarkably similar to the Imari plates that you have."

"Really?" If only I'd been able to walk around and shop. My position as a vendor restricted me.

"The dealer was asking five thousand yen. She didn't know what it was worth, and of course it was a single."

"What a deal," I said glumly.

"If you could sell five plates instead of four, you could achieve extra value. Sell the set for thirty or forty thousand, perhaps," Mr. Ishida mused.

"But someone already bought the plate. You said it was sold."

"To me." Mr. Ishida held up a shopping bag. "Would you like to see?"

The plate was perfect. The blue and white underglaze was as creamy as on my pieces, and the green, red, and gilt depictions of birds, butterflies, and bamboo were all in the right places.

"Would you resell the plate to me?" I asked. "You were the middleman, so I'd be happy to pay you more than the asking price."

"Oh, just the cost is fine. Four thousand."

"But I thought the plate was five thousand."

"I bargained." Mr. Ishida held up a cautionary finger. "This is why I don't want you selling things in this market. It's too easy for the customers to bargain, and too hard for the dealers to make a profit."

I carefully wrapped my wonderful new dish with plenty of newspaper and put it in the van for safekeeping. I expected that I could sell the set next week to one of the fancy stores for a price that would be much better than I'd get at the flea market. Mr. Ishida watched my goods while I went to the van, allowing me enough time for a restroom break and a quick cup of coffee and a chocolate crepe from a vendor in Harajuku.

When I returned to my position, I thanked Mr. Ishida and he went home to rest. I stared out at the crowd, realizing again how much I hated having to stay in one place. In the next hour, my only customer was a housewife who bought three blue-and-white saucers that she said matched two she had at home. "Now you have a perfect set of five," I complimented her, thinking about the terrific potential sale I had with my new set of five plates.

Thinking about my improved business position was a distraction from what would happen later in the day. I wondered what Che was planning that would shake Tokyo. If it were something truly awful, would I be considered an accomplice for not sharing my scanty knowledge with Lieutenant Hata?

My reverie ended as a small foot slid onto my tarpaulin. It was followed by the body of a small blond boy who tumbled into the midst of my wares.

"Ow!" the boy shrieked, then broke into noisy tears. He'd landed on a grouping of antique baskets instead of my neat line of porcelain soba cups.

"You're okay, sweetheart," I said, straining at having to use such an endearment on someone who had nearly devastated my inventory. "Where's your mother?"

"Mummy's busy. Uncle Richard lost me!" the boy wailed. I looked at him more closely, taking in the Doraemon sweatshirt and pale blue eyes. I recognized the child as Lila Braithwaite's middle son, the one who had tried to cut his younger sister's hair with the toy scissors. The 'Uncle Richard' he mentioned was my Richard, eco-terrorist in training.

"You're Donald, aren't you?" I asked, marveling at how he'd managed to slide into my display and not anyone else's. Richard had chided me for being as bossy as a mom. Obviously it showed.

"David!" the boy corrected.

"Okay, David. Did Uncle Richard bring you to the flea market?"

He nodded and cried harder. I thought of hugging him, but I really didn't want to, not with his runny nose. Instead I handed him the rest of my chocolate crepe. He stuck it in his mouth.

It was such a mess, being with the chocolate-and mucus-streaked boy and not a helping hand around. I felt guilty for having felt judgmental toward Lila for her desire to get away from her three children on an occasional basis. I could barely deal with David on his own: I needed to get him back to Richard.

"Excuse me, but could you please watch my goods for a little while? The prices are marked, and you could give anybody who wants one a ten percent discount," I said in a rush to the middle-aged dealer who had been scowling at me all morning from his display of nineteenth-century erotic cartoons.

"I'm afraid not." He only scowled harder. "You should keep your children at home, not bring them to the market."

"He isn't mine!" The snotty David and I looked nothing like each other, I hoped.

"If he's not yours, take him to the police," the man turned away from me firmly and went back to sorting his erotica.

"We are going to have to work together," I told David. "Do you like baskets?"

David tried all the baskets on his head or arms. Now that I had a small foreign boy amidst my wares, more people were stopping to look, and I even sold one of the drool-covered baskets, although David wailed when he had to part with it. My annoyance faded because I knew that it was better that David Braithwaite had tumbled onto someone who recognized him rather than a non-English-speaking dealer. We spent an hour together, and I kept my eyes fixed on the crowd looking for Richard and the others. No luck.

By one o'clock the market was slowing down, and I decided that David's safe return took precedence over a few thousand more yen. I tied a kimono sash cord from my wrist to David's to keep from losing him as I made multiple trips carrying china to the van parked nearby. To some it might have looked inhumane, but David laughed when I told him that we were playing puppy and owner.

We walked the entire flea market twice, looking for David's siblings. I asked every vendor if a small blond man with two other children had been spotted. I finally had luck with a woman at the entrance to the flea market.

"A sweet blond angel dressed in black leather?" she said with a lascivious grin. "He was pushing a stroller with a little girl in it, and there was another boy by his side."

"Which way did they go?"

"Through the market and then back. In the end they crossed the street and went to a police box."

I walked David across the street to the police box, where it turned out that Richard had in fact placed a missing-persons report. The policeman on duty looked David over while I explained that I knew the child and his mother and uncle. Seeming vastly relieved, the policeman suggested that I take the boy directly to Roppongi Hills. This seemed pretty trusting to me, but I guessed that the way David was barking and crawling made the officer afraid to remain alone with him.

By the time I'd secured David in the backseat of the van—with no child safety seat, I was praying for no accidents—he was still growling and yipping like a canine.

"I believe that you'll be the first dog to be allowed to live in Roppongi Hills," I said, feeling quite cheerful as I started driving. If Lila or no other family members were home, I knew that Mr. Oi, the building concierge, would look after him.

"Mummy says dogs are dirty."

"Well, I can see how other dogs would suffer in comparison to such a handsome cocker spaniel as you."

"Doberman! David is a Doberman!" he shrieked.

At Roppongi Hills I left the van double-parked in the portico and went inside, holding David's hand.

Mr. Oi looked startled to see me with my new mate. "Mrs. Braithwaite is home. I shall call her to announce David-chan's arrival," he said, and called up over the intercom. He gave David a cherry-blossom-shaped lollipop to suck on while we waited.

"There's no answer," he said, looking at me with a puzzled expression. "The only explanation is that she is also on the telephone. She has two lines, you see, and if she is busy talking to somebody on one line, she may not want to answer our call. I let the telephone ring, but she is not answering. She must be home, because I sent up a guest earlier."

I had a similar phone system and was occasionally guilty of not answering an incoming beep when I was involved in something important. "Should I go upstairs and knock?"

"Yes, please. Miss Shimura. If she doesn't answer, please come downstairs with the child. I can entertain him with a small portable television."

"David watch Doraemon cartoon!" my charge demanded as I led him away.

Riding up in the elevator, I glanced at our appearance in the mirrored wall and straightened both of us up a bit. Last time I'd been in the elevator, I'd longingly looked there for the memory of Hugh. I didn't this time. Somehow the romantic feelings were gone.

When had I changed? Sometime between the night Takeo had followed me out of Salsa Salsa and our last awkward time together in his office, when he had stood close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck. Yes, I was starting to fall, but for somebody who had been upset with me during our last encounter, and probably would be even more depressed when I suggested that the person fencing Kayama ware was not his long-lost mother but Sakura. It would be the loss of a dream that he had kept alive for so long.

David skipped toward his doorway on the seventh floor, and I hurried to catch up with him. I rang the doorbell. Lila didn't answer it, so after another minute I buzzed again. I felt the first stirrings of fear. Mr. Oi had been certain that Lila was upstairs in her apartment, and if she wasn't answering, it might mean that she was injured. Or dead, I thought with a chill.

"David wants to wee." David pressed his hands against the front of his pants.

"Please wait," I pleaded, mind flashing desperately between two possible disasters: a deceased Lila Braithwaite, or David letting loose on the cream-colored hallway carpet. I knew David didn't wear diapers, because I'd lifted him into the back of Mr. Ishida's van.

I knocked loudly and called Lila's name. David was moaning even more about needing the toilet. There was one thing left in my arsenal: my key ring. I'd never been asked to give up the copy of the key Hugh had made for me, and there was an off chance that it might fit Lila's door. I located the key in the bottom of my backpack, and when I put it into the lock, it didn't turn. However, the pressure I'd applied moved the door. I put my hand directly on the knob and turned it. The door had been unlocked the whole time.