The Nicholas Linnear Novels (14 page)

On the other hand, his aunt in no way created the same effect in him. She was an exceedingly small and delicately boned woman, beautiful though, in Nicholas’ opinion, the perfect symmetricality of her face could not compare to his mother’s features.

Itami always wore formal Japanese attire. She was constantly attended to by servants. Her diminutive size made all the more fascinating her rather charismatic nature. She was, the Colonel had told him, a member of one of Japan’s greatest and oldest houses, of the
bushi
class. She was a samurai lady. She had been married to Satsugai for eleven years and he, as far as Nicholas knew, was a wealthy and influential businessman.

Then there was Rami’s son, Saigō. He was a year older than Nicholas, a large burly boy with deep brooding eyes and a cruel and calculating disposition. He spent much time with his father but, on the many occasions when the two families got together, it was inevitable that Nicholas and Saigō should be thrown together.

It seemed to Nicholas that the other boy hated him almost on sight. Why this should be so he could not imagine. Not until much later. But then he reacted as any boy in any part of the world might to such unadulterated hostility. He returned measure for measure.

It was, of course, Satsugai who had put Saigō up to it. This knowledge, when it came to him, only increased Nicholas’ hatred and fear of the man. But then it was also Saigō who introduced Nicholas to Yukio. As it is said, all things in life balance themselves out.

Don’t they?

W
HEN THE MAN WITH
the mirrored aviator sunglasses emerged from the depths of Pennsylvania Station on the Seventh Avenue side he did not look around him; nor did he walk immediately to the curb, as did most of his fellow passengers, to wave a raised hand to hail a cruising taxi.

Instead, he waited dutifully for the light to change and, when it did, went quickly across the avenue, ignoring the light rain. By the way he walked and, perhaps because of the rather long black duffel bag slung obliquely across his muscular shoulder, one might have thought he was a professional dancer; he moved as effortlessly and as gracefully as the wind.

He wore a short-sleeved navy silk shirt and cotton slacks of the same deep blue, charcoal-gray suede shoes with almost no heel and soles as thin as paper. His face was rather wide; deep lines were scored downward from each side of his mouth as if he had never learned how to smile. His black hair was bristly and cut short.

On the east side of Seventh Avenue he went by the crowded façade of the Statler Hilton Hotel, crossed Thirty-second Street and, passing up the green and white awning of the Chinatown Express, ducked into the McDonald’s next door.

Inside, he went swiftly through the garish yellow and orange interior to a line of telephone booths along one wall. At the side of the extreme left-hand booth was a row of telephone directories encased in steel bindings to discourage theft and vandalism. They hung down in a stand waist-high like quiescent bats in a cave.

The man in the sunglasses pushed up the Yellow Pages book. Its cover was torn and defaced and the bottom edges of a large hunk of the center pages were mutilated as if someone had attempted to eat them. He leafed through the book until he came to the section he wanted. He ran one forefinger down the page. Near the bottom, it stopped and the man nodded to himself. He already knew the address but, out of long habit, liked to double-check his information.

Once more outside, he recrossed the avenue, walking west at a brisk pace along the width of the Madison Square Garden complex, and caught an uptown bus on Eighth Avenue. It was crowded. He stood in the hot and airless interior. The bus smelled from stale sweat and mildew.

At the Seventy-fourth Street stop he swung off and walked up one block. There he turned off Central Park West and headed west toward the Hudson River. The rain had ceased for the moment but the sky remained close and dark, as if hung over from a long night of revelry. The air was completely calm. The city steamed.

He found the address approximately midway between Broadway and West End Avenue on the north side of the street. His nostrils flared for an instant as he mounted the steps of the brownstone. He opened the glass and wood outer doors and stepped into the tiny vestibule. Before him was a modern steel and wire-glass door securely locked. There was a buzzer on the wall of the vestibule which he pushed firmly. Just above it was a discreet brass plate on which was etched
TOHOKU NO DOJO
and, above that, a small oval speaker grill.

“Yes?” came a tinny voice from the grill.

The man with the sunglasses leaned slightly to the side. “I wish an appointment,” he said.

He waited, one hand already on the knob of the inner door.

“Please come up. Second floor. Around to the left as far as you can go.”

The door buzzed and he pushed it open.

He could smell the tang of sweat, tinged with the piquant spices of exertion and fear. For the first time since setting foot in the city, he felt at home. Contemptuously, he tossed this feeling aside. He went swiftly and silently up the carpeted stairs.

Terry Tanaka was on the phone with Vincent when Eileen came up to him. Seeing the look in her eyes, he asked Vincent to hold the line and, putting his palm over the phone, said, “What is it, Ei?”

“There’s a man here who wishes to practice today.”

“So? We can handle it. Sign him up.”

“I think you had better take care of this one yourself,” she said.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s asking to see you. And for another, I’ve seen the way he walks. He’s no student.”

Terry smiled. “You see how our fame has spread? That piece in
New York
was great.” But when she did not respond, he said, “That’s not all, is it?”

She shook her head. “The guy gives me the creeps. His eyes …” She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wish you’d handle it.”

“Okay. Listen, give him a cup of tea or something. I’ll be right there.”

She nodded, giving him a thin smile.

“What was that?” Vincent said in his ear.

Terry uncovered the mouthpiece. “Oh, nothing probably. Just a client who’s spooked Ei.”

“How is she?”

“Fine.”

“And the two of you?”

“Oh, you know. About the same.” Terry gave a quick laugh. “I’m still waiting for her to say yes. I’ve been on one knee so many times, I’ve worn out four pairs of pants.”

Vincent laughed. “We still on for dinner tonight?”

“Sure. As long as it’s an early one. I want to see Ei tonight.”

“Sure thing. Just some questions I’d like to ask you. Nick was going to come but—”

“Hey! How is he? He called just before he went out to the Island. Has he been loafing all summer?”

Vincent laughed. “Yeah. Until I got hold of him. He’s got a new woman, too.”

“Good,” Terry said. “About time. The ties are still very strong, huh?”

“Yeah.” Vincent knew only too well what Terry meant. “He sends his love to you and Ei. He’ll be in soon, I’m sure, and he’ll stop by.”

“Good enough. Hey, my new client will no doubt bite Ei’s head off if I don’t run. See you at seven. ’Bye.”

He hung up and went across the room and around the corner to meet Mr. Wonderful.

As Terry came up, Eileen Okura felt some of her apprehension dissipate. She had been startled by two separate elements. First, she had not heard the man’s approach. Second, his countenance was unusual. He stood now precisely as she had first seen him, duffel bag on his back, his sunglasses swinging from the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The skin of his face and his hands was far too white for an Oriental’s. But, she saw, as she glanced at his throat where his shirt was open, this snowy color predominated only in those areas, for his chest was a darker, more natural hue. It was as if he had been in some kind of hideous accident. An explosion, perhaps, affecting the exposed areas of his flesh. Yet, for all that, it was his eyes which held her. They looked utterly dead, black stones dropped into a stagnant pool of water, they could not conceivably retain any form of emotion. And it was these same eyes which regarded her now as if she were some specimen, stripped and laid out on a sterile surface, ready for dissection. Eileen felt a brief chill wash over her.

“
Watashi ni nanika goyō desu ka
,” Terry said to the man. How may I help you?

“
Anata ga kono dōjo no master desu ka
.” Are you the master of this
dōjo?

Terry seemed to ignore the abrupt and therefore extremely impolite mode of the other’s speech, said, “
So desu
.” Yes.

“
Koko de renshu sasete itadakitai no desu ga
.” I wish to practice.

“I see. Which disciplines are you interested in?”

“Aikido, karate, kenjutsu.”

“For aikido and karate I can surely accommodate you. But as for kenjutsu, I am afraid that is quite impossible. My instructor is away on vacation.”

“What about yourself?”

“Me? I have given up teaching kenjutsu.”

“I require no instruction. Practice with me for an hour.”

“I—”

“It is better than filling out forms.”

“That it is. My name is Terry Tanaka. And yours?”

“Hideyoshi.”

A name from out of the past. Terry nodded. “All right. Miss Okura will give you the necessary forms. The charge is forty dollars an hour.”

The other nodded curtly. Terry half expected him to produce a plastic wallet filled with travelers’ checks but instead the man peeled off one hundred and twenty dollars in twenties from a roll he kept in his front right-hand pants pocket.

“Sign there,” Terry said, pointing. He nodded toward a small doorway at the far end of the room. “You can change in there. Do you have your own robe?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Fine. The
dōjo
proper is one flight up. Which discipline do you prefer to begin with?”

“Surprise me,” Hideyoshi said, walking away. He disappeared through the doorway into the darkness of the locker room beyond.

Terry turned his head away, saw Eileen staring at the empty doorway across the room. There were no shadows. The light filtering in through the half-drawn blinds which covered the high narrow windows was diffuse enough to put a patina on her glowing skin. She looked slim and tiny, he thought. A pale ballerina about to perform her half of a difficult pas de deux.

“Who is he?” Her voice seemed like a whisper in the high-ceilinged room. Above their heads came the thump of the floorboards.

Terry shrugged. He was a big man, perhaps six feet, with wide shoulders and narrow waist and hips. His face was flat, the eyes black above very high cheekbones. He told Eileen what had transpired.

“You’re not going to do it, Terry?”

He shrugged. “Why not? It’s only an hour’s practice.” But he knew what she meant and his heart was not nearly so light as his words sounded. He was, along with Nicholas, one of the greatest kenjutsu masters now living outside Japan. At thirty-eight, Terry had already spent three quarters of his life studying kenjutsu, the ancient Japanese art of swordsmanship. His reason for abruptly abandoning it within the past year might not be altogether easy for a Westerner to understand.

In the first place, no martial art depended solely on physical discipline. In fact, a great percentage was mental. Long ago, he had read Miyamoto Musashi’s
Go Rin No Sho.
It was perhaps the greatest treatise on strategy in all the world. Though written in just a few short weeks before the great warrior’s death, its knowledge is timeless, Terry thought. Today, he was well aware, many prominent Japanese businessmen mapped out their major corporate advertising and sales campaigns with Miyamoto’s principles in mind.

Just about a year ago, he had picked up the
Go Rin No Sho
once again. But, in reading it, he had now found what he believed to be quite different and darker meanings hidden within the logic and vaults of imagination. To devote oneself so religiously to the domination of others was not, he felt, what life was all about. He had been disturbed by dreams, then, black portents without form or face, all the more real and frightening for that. He had felt compelled to rid himself of the volume, throwing it out in the middle of the night, not even waiting until morning.

In daylight, the feeling had remained. He felt as if he had mistakenly taken a wrong turn in the dead of night and, without warning, had found himself on the lip of a great abyss. There had been a temptation to look over the verge but, with it, had come the knowledge that if he did, he would surely lose his balance and tumble forward into the darkness. Thus Terry had stepped back and, turning away, had put his
katana
away forever.

And then today, this strange man who called himself Hideyoshi appears. Terry shivered inwardly, too much in control to let Eileen see his true emotions. Besides, he did not want to alarm her.

It was surely some kind of omen, for he had no doubt that the man knew well the teachings of Miyamoto. But even beyond this, there was no doubt in his mind that Hideyoshi was a
haragei
adept. The concept, stemming from two words,
hara
, meaning centralization and integration, and
ki
, meaning an extended form of energy, was more than intuition or a sixth sense but, as Terry’s
sensei
had said, “a true way of perceiving reality.” It was akin to having eyes in the back of your head, amplifiers in your ears. Yet
haragei
could work both ways: being an ultrasensitive receiver also made one an excellent transmitter if one came within a certain distance of another
haragei
adept. Terry had picked this up instantly.

“Just another Japanese off the plane from Haneda,” he said nonchalantly to Eileen. He would not, under any circumstances, have told her what he really knew about the man.

“Well, there’s something odd about him.” She was still staring at the black doorway, which seemed to gape at her like the mouth of a grinning skull. “Those eyes—” she shuddered. “So impersonal, like—like cameras.” She took a step toward Terry. “What’s he doing in there so long, do you think?”