The Nicholas Linnear Novels (119 page)

He perceived from the moment Sato himself had met him at the door to the house that the older man needed his friendship and support. Whatever was behind the
Wu-Shing
slayings was far more important to him than holding pat in resisting the merger as originally outlined by Tomkin. Whatever fear had erupted in Sato and Nangi of the ritual punishments overrode their normal caution and preference for hard dealing.

And within this softening of his stance Nicholas, trained to dissect every situation in evaluating the elements which created it, perceived a weakness.

It did not make him feel particularly noble or honorable to use this weakness to gain the advantage, yet he desperately needed an opening into
Tenchi.
He knew quite well that under almost any other circumstance he would have come up against a stone wall where
Tenchi
was concerned. However, in this instance the
keiretsu
’s secret work made them vulnerable to outside scrutiny. Sato had made it clear that no police were to be involved. Nicholas was the only person who could conceivably break the chain of the
Wu-Shing,
thus he had a powerful bargaining point from which to open the negotiations.

“Fah!” Sato exclaimed, focusing Nicholas’ attention. He threw his cup to the floor. He was wearing a kimono composed of the flaming colors of autumn. He had generously offered one of his own—the one with the angular
Nōh
pattern that he had been wearing the night Akiko had brought him his last gift before they were married—and Nicholas was now wearing it. Dregs of the brown liquor flew up the sleeve, lying in beads like decoration. “This Scotch is no true liquor at all.” He turned red-rimmed eyes on his guest. “Linnear-san, you pick our drink for the evening.”

“Thank you, Sato-san.” Nicholas bowed. “I’d very much like some sakē. Hot, if that’s possible.”

“Possible!” Sato exploded. “Why, it’s the only way to drink it!” He lurched heavily to his feet, padded in his low white socks to the bar against the longer of the two inner walls of the room. It was fairly large by Japanese standards, sixteen-
tatami.
The wet bar also contained a black iron-and-boxwood
naga-hibachi
, smaller than the one in the other side of the house. This one was never touched by the women of the household but was reserved expressly for the use of the host.

As he went about heating the rice wine, Sato hummed quietly to himself an ancient folk tune his Obā-chama had crooned to him when he and Gōtarō were children. It seemed to fill the house with a warmth that was not exactly physical, as if he had summoned up the attention of good
kami.

But when he returned to the low lacquer table with the sakē, his face was set into somber lines. “I fear we have fallen on evil times, Linnear-san,” he said as he poured. “This
Wu-Shing…
” He shuddered. “I am
samurai
but this…this is simply barbaric. I am not at all surprised that its origins are Chinese. How very indiscriminate we Japanese are, eh, to take the worst from them along with the best. The Yakuza are nothing more than glorified Triads; and the ninja have their origins there as well.”

His eyes crossed for a moment as if he had just forgotten something important, and then his head went down. “Forgive me, Linnear-san. An old man’s tongue runs on and on late at night.”

Nicholas lifted his left arm as if to make a gesture and in so doing caught the hem of his sleeve on the lip of the delicate porcelain sakē pitcher. It made a tiny sound as it shattered. Clear liquid ran across the table.

Nicholas jumped up. “A thousand pardons, Sato-san. Please forgive my Western clumsiness.”

Sato calmly wiped away the liquor and quickly gathered up the shards of porcelain. “There is nothing to forgive, my friend. Akiko is not here to serve us from the best porcelain. This was an old and timeworn piece that needed throwing out. In fact it is only my laziness which had precluded me from disposing of the pitcher myself.”

Thus did Nicholas cleverly negate his host’s acute embarrassment, gaining enormous face in Sato’s eyes while saving face for his host.

When Sato returned from heating more sakē, there was new respect in his eyes. He bowed as he pushed the filled cup across the table.

“
Domo arigato.
” Nicholas returned the bow.

Sato downed more sakē before he spoke again. “It is my opinion, Linnear-san, that the
Wu-Shing
is being directed at us—that is, Nangi-san and myself—even though the three deaths have seriously undermined the effectiveness of the
konzern.
There is something personal in the manner of the deaths. With each one, Kagami-san, Yoshida-san, Ishii-san, we come closer and closer to the core of the company. The path is indeed terrifying to contemplate.”

He stared down at his empty cup, and Nicholas realized that even with so much alcohol inside him this was a difficult moment. All Nicholas could do was to remain silent.

“I have thought much about these ritual punishments.” Sato’s head came up. “And I now believe that we are being stalked by our past. Can you understand that? Yes, I thought so. You of all people.”

“Have you and Nangi-san discussed the possible…origins of these punishments.”

“No. Nangi-san is
sempai.
”

“Yes. I see.”

“Besides,” Sato admitted, “Nangi-san is no good when it comes to the past. There are many things that he would rather forget, some because they are too hateful, others because they are just too full of intimate emotion. You may think Nangi-san cold and heartless but this is not true. No, no. On the contrary, emotion is quite dear to him.

“He wept bitterly when my Obā-chama died. He was heartsick at having to sell a pair of her T’ang Dynasty cups. Sadly, we were forced to do so in order to come to Tokyo and begin our careers just after the war ended.

“These cups, you know, were superb examples of the genius of those faraway Chinese artisans, as limpid as a mountain stream. But beyond their undeniable aesthetic value I believe a component of Nangi-san’s attachment to them stemmed from the poignant circumstances under which my Obā-chama received them.” He told Nicholas the story of his grandmother’s distant relative fleeing the firebombing of Tokyo. “I think for Nangi-san this incident more than any other exemplified the useless cruelty of the war. The past is dear to him, and I think you can understand why he would not wish to speak of it.”

Sato shook his head. “I’m afraid he cannot be counted on, there. Memory is an affliction with him. He will not speak of the past, even with me.”

“Then it must be up to you, Sato-san.”

“I know,” the older man said miserably, “but up to now I have been able to remember nothing out of the ordinary. You know what it was like here after the war. Those were extraordinary times. More often than not survival called for taking extraordinary measures. Regimes came and went. Alliances were hastily formed and just as hastily dissolved.” Sato poured them both more wine.

“I understand. Many enemies could have been made then, as well as friends.”

Sato nodded. “Those were pressurized times. I often think that decades were compressed into years, years into months. We accomplished so much in such a small amount of time, coming back from the abyss of defeat, regaining our self-confidence. It was as if we had to begin all over again. The holocaust purged us in a way of many of the worst elements we had allowed to run our society.

“Like the contents of Noah’s Ark, we stepped ashore on Mount Ararat prepared to begin a new society. And we did just that. We overcame runaway inflation, we directed the growth of our industry through MITI and allowed picked sections to enjoy the most high speed growth known in the world.”

He looked at Nicholas and smiled. “We were even successful at turning the slogan ‘Made in Japan’ from a derogation into a status symbol.

“None of this was an accident; none of it was luck. Our
karma
is great, and we continue to thrive though we sometimes experience growing pains.”

He poured more sakē, slopping some onto the lacquer. “But do you know the one thing we still cannot tolerate, Linnear-san? It is the knowledge that even in times of an oil glut there is what amounts to a caravan of tankers arriving and departing Japan, day and night, dotting the Pacific in an endless stream.

“The world must feed us in order for us to survive. Like a mewling infant who cannot make his own food, we are stuck on these beautiful islands, on rock devoid of all fossil fuels.

“Can you understand how galling that is for us, Linnear-san?” He nodded sagely. “But of course you can. You are part of us, after all. I can see that even if others cannot. And you know there is truth to the saying that misfortune never lasts a lifetime.”

He sighed heavily. “But I tell you that sometimes I am not certain.” His hair hung lankly on his head and his kimono had come partly unwrapped so that Nicholas could see a broad section of his hairless chest and the edge of one dark nipple.

“The truth is,” he said, his voice slurring slightly, “that there are times when I miss my wife. Oh, not Akiko. No, no. I was married before. Mariko was her name. Beautiful Mariko. She was very young when we met.” He smiled again and Nicholas could discern a light, boyish quality pushing through the years of accumulated sorrow. “And I? Well, I was a good deal younger, too.

“Nangi-san and I already knew each other. He was in MITI and I was in business. I had several
kobun
in those days and all were successful. In some matters I relied on Mariko’s judgment. It was she who had recommended that I buy the Ikiru Cosmetics Company. This was in 1976. Ikiru manufactured face creams and astringents, and when I purchased it the Japanese cosmetics boom was just beginning its sharp upswing.

“The investment was fantastic. In the first year of acquisition alone the
keiretsu
made back its purchase price and even showed a small profit from Ikiru. The future looked bright indeed for the second year.

“As part of her familial duty Mariko began to use Ikiru’s products herself, rationalizing that she certainly could not expect all her friends to use Ikiru’s products if she herself did not.

“Because her perfect porcelain skin was her pride she used the face cream and astringent twice a day as she had with her former brands. Several months later she began complaining of headaches of migraine intensity. These would often last several days. She would become alarmingly dizzy on and off during that time.

“I took her to a doctor. He could find nothing wrong with her and suggested a week at a spa for relaxation. Dutifully following his advice, I packed her off to the peaceful countryside. But at the spa Mariko became ill with a fever that went well above 103. When another physician was summoned by the worried proprietors, he found her heartbeat irregular and far too rapid.

“At their urging, he phoned me. I went immediately and fetched her. In Tokyo, she was referred to a specialist, who after administering a battery of tests informed her that she was having trouble with her gall bladder. He prescribed some medicine.

“But the fevers persisted and now she began to feel that the flesh of her face was sticky beneath the glossy skin, so she used the astringent even more religiously after each application of the face cream.

“Until one morning she woke up to discover that the skin all over her body was as slick and smooth as that of her face. Running her hand down her leg, it seemed more the appendage of a wax doll than that of a human being.

“More upset than ever, she returned to the specialist, who subjected her to yet another battery of tests. This time he assured her it was her pancreas. More medicine was prescribed and dutifully consumed.

“A week later Mariko awoke in a sweat. She sat up with a start, her heart beating like a triphammer. She had been dreaming. Blood in her dreams. And now looking down at her pillow she saw a reddish brown stain there.

“Automatically she put her palm up to her cheek. It came away smeared with blood and some other discharge she could not name. Hysterical now, she called out for me, and this time I insisted she be admitted to the hospital.

“She had lost a lot of weight and now she had trouble breathing. Yet the doctors could detect nothing wrong with her lungs or indeed her respiratory system. Matter continued to ooze from her pores and Mariko had to be restrained lest the incessant itching cause her to lacerate her skin. She continued to insist that something was under her skin.

“The matter she exuded was sent to the hospital’s toxicological lab for analysis but the technicians were overworked, and in any event testing takes time.

“In the interim, Mariko went on continuous IV, unable to eat. Slowly she slipped away from me, submerged in a coma that was as inexplicable to the physicians as were all of her other symptoms.

“She died less than a week later, drifting from the twilight of coma, from half-death to the full measure of sleep, without ever having regained consciousness. I cannot remember having said good-bye to her or even that I loved her during those long days and even longer nights.”

There was no more food and even the wine was gone. Empty plates stared at them from the litter of the table.

“It was only some consolation,” Sato said, “when the toxicological lab finally worked out the problem. It seemed that the face cream she had been using contained a paraffinlike polymer, similar to one used in the manufacture of enamel paint. The astringent dissolved that particular polymer, thus allowing it to be absorbed by her bloodstream. It had blocked the pores of her skin, suffocating her by minute degrees, and had affected a number of her internal organs, including her gall bladder and pancreas.

“At once thunderstruck and heartsick, I immediately took steps to alter the formulas of Ikiru’s products and, that done, began to list all the ingredients in Ikiru products on their containers. But it was not until 1979 that the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, acting on the prolonged outcry not only from me but from the thousands who had suffered from the less than fatal
kokuhisho
, black skin syndrome, from the inclusion of Red 219, a coal tar dye, in some creams, established the act requiring the listing of all cosmetic ingredients.