The Samurai's Daughter (21 page)

“I'll join him when I can,” Hugh said. “But for now, I'm here.”

“That's reassuring.” I pushed aside the
daikon
, which had tasted so good a minute ago but now was like soggy wood in my mouth. “So, Mr. Sharp, I understand you and Hugh have a big meeting with Morita Inc. tomorrow. Do you think they'll be surprised?”

“Surprised by what?” His eyebrows drew together in an expression of polite concern.

“Well, I'm curious whether
you
think they're already aware of the class action.”

“You mean—because someone planted tear gas on your doorstep?” he said. He smiled. “I don't really know. The tear gas could have come from anywhere. There was a nationalist demonstration at the Yasakuni Shrine where tear gas was involved—yesterday, wasn't it?”

“You're up on the news,” Hugh said. “I hadn't even heard about that.”

“I didn't have a chance to tell you,” I said, turning back to Charles. “Yes, I'm aware of the demonstration. Look at the potential link, though. You're going after a big Japanese company—the backbone of the nation. You're going to expose war secrets. Imperialists have to hate it! And they could have done so much more than the tear gas to warn us—they could have been the ones who killed Rosa and tried to kill Ramon. Even if they didn't do it with their own hands, they could have hired a hit man to do the job. You know, this country has a long tradition of that kind of violence-for-hire work, going all the way back to the samurai.”

“It doesn't really matter what I think.” Charles smiled blandly. “You're the insider, Rei. The one with an instinct for understanding.”

I shook my head, sensing that I'd been too forceful and again lost my edge. “There's a saying about people who have lived in Japan for a long time,” I continued in a quieter voice. “At first, you know nothing—the land and people are as inscrutable as all the stereotypes. Then, after a few months, you relax and you feel you understand. You engage happily in life, and tell your old friends in America or Europe or wherever you're from that you finally enjoy and understand the Japanese people. And then, just as things are going swimmingly, something changes. You lose your confidence
and realize that you never understood this country and its people after all.”

I caught my breath after I'd finished. I hadn't meant to be so self-revealing. But I'd been thinking about my neighbor Mrs. Yuto's no longer liking me, and the gas on the doorstep. I couldn't figure out what was going on in the country that I'd always loved—but didn't seem to reciprocate anymore.

The shadows seemed longer in my room later that night as I lay back on my bed in a woozy haze. I had gotten so depressed that I'd drank too much sake—not only at dinner, but afterward, when I beseeched Hugh to stop in with me for a nightcap at the seedy little
izakaya
around the corner from my apartment. I'd broken practically every Buddhist rule in the book, except for the ones regarding killing. At the rate at which I was going, though, who knew what was next?

“I'm a liability,” I moaned after we'd come home and Hugh was helping me get into my Japanese long johns. “You're either going to have to divorce me or quit that firm.”

“Divorce is out of the question, as we haven't even found the wedding site yet.” Hugh stroked my cheek. “And as for the other possibility, I don't work for Sharp, Witter and Rowe yet—and I don't think I'm ever going to.”

“Charles wants you completely under his thumb,” I said. “And he's using COLA and that fancy apartment as the lure.”

“Andrews and Cheyne
should
offer me their own COLA package,” Hugh said. “I don't know why they haven't brought it up yet. Anyway, I'm lucky enough to have a fiancé with a charming flat.”

“Yeah, the only problem is it's subject to attack from the neighbors. Or whoever.” I curled under my covers, waiting for Hugh to get in. But instead, he sat down in the corner of the room and
began pulling everything out of his briefcase. Then he put things back and closed the latch.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“My cassette player. Have you seen it?”

“No, but my Walkman's on the bookcase in my living-dining room, if you want to borrow it.”

“I'm talking about my microcassette player,” Hugh said. “I had it in my briefcase today, I'm sure. It's the one you saw me using when we spoke to Rosa on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, that tape. I'm surprised you didn't give it to the San Francisco police,” I said, raising myself up on one elbow so I could get a better look at him.

“At the time they were talking to me, I didn't think what we'd recorded had anything to do with her death. But tonight, something you said jogged a memory. I want to listen to it again.”

“Do you think someone removed it from your briefcase?” I asked.

“It could have happened. But the only time the briefcase was out of my sight was when I went to the loo. And at those times it was in the office suite we've rented, under the protection of Charles and Eric.”

“What kind of protection is that?” I said.

“I agree,” he said, coming over to sit on the edge of the futon. “It was damn stupid of me. When you said what you did about the gold tonight, I realized that both of them were acting too surprised to be believable. Charles should have known because of his interest in antiquities. And Eric should have known because of his heritage.”

“You could go into work tomorrow and ask each of them if they've seen the tape recorder. Their reactions could be interesting.”

“They'll both deny it, I'm sure.”

“You never know—maybe you really did misplace it. Have you checked your coat pockets?”

Hugh shrugged and got up to go to the front of the apartment, where I had a tiny excuse for a coat closet that was mostly taken up by luggage. After a second, I heard laughter. “Thanks. You're right!”

“You found it there?”

“Yes, I must have shifted it to my pocket sometime—maybe because I was mistaking it for my lost phone.”

An hour later, we'd played the short tape more than forty times. We'd also each written our own transcriptions of what we'd heard and compared. One passage seemed the most interesting—and of course, the hardest to figure out.

After that, there was nothing of note except the sound of breaking glass outside. “What was the word?” Hugh slipped his arms around me. “Now I'm wondering if she said it before in the Tagalog interview she did with Eric. But it only came to me as a suspicion, following what you said tonight at dinner about the gold. I can't thank you enough for being there.”

“Good,” I said, nestling against his chest. “Now, can we get to sleep?”

“Let's work out the last sentence,” Hugh said. “Or last two sentences, maybe.”

“Hugh, your English is sounding suspiciously American. Wash your mouth with Aquarius Water and go to sleep.”

“What was it in? Got!” Hugh said, stabbing at the paper with his finger. “She said it loudly and clearly. I suspect it's just the foreign intonation that made it sound like two sentence fragments to us.”

“You think you understand something.” I sighed heavily. “I'm afraid I don't. I guess it's because I'm so tired…. Can you tell me tomorrow?”

“Before you go to sleep, just look. Here.”

I blinked my bleary eyes and followed his finger on the page he'd written in his elegant, loopy handwriting. And then I saw.

By the time I'd finally gotten it about the ingot, it was late enough at night in Tokyo that it was mid-morning in California. Hugh telephoned a paralegal at Sharp, Witter and Rowe to request copies of the tape he and Eric had made during their formal interview of Rosa—plus Eric's Tagalog and English transcriptions of the interview. Because the documents were confidential, the paralegal said, she couldn't fax them but they would go out with the overnight mail. Hugh would get them in two days if he were lucky.

“I don't know if I can wait that long,” Hugh fumed after he'd hung up the phone. “And if they're so highly confidential, that might mean she'll automatically contact Charles about why I want them. And then he'll wonder if I can be trusted.”

“If the paralegal is sending the papers, she trusts you,” I said. “Who wouldn't? Now the challenge will be to find a trustworthy Tagalog speaker to independently verify Eric's translation of what was on the tape. And if it turns out he lied, it might mean…”

“Eric was involved in Rosa's death, because he knew she knew the location of the gold. The more I think about it, he's the one who came in late on Boxing Day to work—I didn't tell you earlier, because so many other things had happened, but Charles was quite annoyed that he wasn't there on the dot at nine that morning.”

“I'm not wild about Eric,” I said. “But I still find it hard to believe he's ruthless enough to have killed an elder from within his community.”

“You're sounding awfully nationalistic,” Hugh said.

“But in San Francisco's Asian communities, people feel so proud and protective of those who emigrated before them. And that's coupled with the traditional Asian reverence for elders.” I paused, thinking it over. “Eric wouldn't have killed an old Filipina
lady. What if he presented the transcript with all the information about ingots and Charles Sharp got interested? Maybe the reason Charles offered you all the goodies tonight is because he thinks he'll stay undetected if you're under his control.”

“But Charles was in the States when Ramon Espinosa was attacked,” Hugh said.

“So was Eric,” I countered. “He telephoned me and the Caller ID showed the call originated in San Francisco. But either of them could have hired a hit man.”

“Tell me more about that phone call,” Hugh said.

I described what I remembered about Eric's phone call—the one in which I decided he still had a crush on me.

“He probably called you using his mobile phone,” Hugh said. “I know he carries one. He could have been in Tokyo, calling you with his mobile, and it would still have said San Francisco because that's where the number is registered.”

“Oh, really?” I didn't have a cell phone, and as a result I hadn't thought much about what one could do with them, other than irritate people around me.

“Let me look at your phone for a minute.” Hugh pressed a few buttons. “Ah, here it is. Let me try it.” He punched a few more buttons. In a minute, he spoke again. “Hello. Is it Eric? Great, Hugh here.” He shot an I-told-you-so look at me. “Ah, yes, I know it's the middle of the night. Sorry. I just assumed you were awake with jet lag.”

Hugh asked him about how they were gettting to Morita Incorporated the next day, listened to the answer, and then said good-bye. He looked at me in triumph and said, “Now we know that Eric could have been at home in San Francisco, or here, or some other country altogether when he rang you.”

I didn't want t believe Eric had done it. I said, “I wish I could talk to my father. He might know something more about Eric's situation that could shed light on him doing anything criminal—”

“Don't do that yet,” Hugh said. “We still don't know whether the transcripts Eric made are honest ones or not. I don't want to risk accusing Eric of a crime if he's done nothing. Morita Incorporated could be behind it all. And they'd love it, wouldn't they, if a poor young translator were made the scapegoat.”

Hugh had a reasonable point. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn't sit and wait as patiently as he. It wasn't my style. And while Hugh had a bona fide business day to attend to, I didn't. In the long night during which we both tossed and turned, I thought about what I could do to find out the truth about Eric and Charles. The things that I came up with weren't all entirely proper—but they would lead to answers.

That morning, instead of seeing Hugh off at my door, I took him out for breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts and then walked with him to the train station. We enjoyed a brief but warming embrace before his southbound Chiyoda Line train pulled in. It was a cold morning, I noticed, after he left. My breath flew up in small smoky gusts as I stood on the platform, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for my own northbound subway train to come on the opposite platform.

When I got out of the train a half hour later in Kanda, the sun had risen high enough that the temperatures were in the fifties. I warmed up as I power-walked to Kanda General.

Nurse Tanaka was on duty again. She was surprised to see me so early, but she didn't seem angry. She told me that Dr. Nigawa was making rounds, checking on how each intensive care patient had fared over the night.

“How is Espinosa-san?” I asked, and she lit up like Christmas.

“He improved yesterday. For only twenty minutes, but it happened. I know it, because I was there.”

“He woke up for you?” I suppose it did make sense; they were the ones in constant contact with him.

“Yes, he did.” Again, Nurse Tanaka beamed. “I was there with a junior nurse, and I'd instructed her to bathe him with a pleasantly scented soap. Soon he began twitching one side of his face. At first we thought it was random, but then we realized he was trying to say something to us!”

“Oh my. What did he say?”

“We asked, ‘Do you want the soap?' and he made two twitches. Then we asked, ‘Do you want us to use cold water?' and he made one twitch. We asked if he was communicating yes or no, and he twitched twice again. To say yes.”

“Did you bring in the police then?”

“The police?” Nurse Tanaka looked stunned at my question.

“Yes, because, well, he was attacked. He might have been able to give some yes-no answers about his attacker.”

“I didn't think of it, to tell the truth. We were more focused on his recovery. By the time Dr. Nigawa came to see him, he'd fallen asleep. But the doctor said there is every chance he will come back to us.”

I was disappointed they hadn't pushed to find out who had hurt him; but I could also understand their first priority was Ramon's health. I asked if I could go in to see him.

“Yes, but you haven't heard the end of the story! We told him the names of the people who had come to visit him. He reacted
most
strongly to your name.”

That made me nervous. I asked, “But what about his nephew?”

“Nothing. I mean, he twitched no, but I imagine that just meant he didn't know him very well. But I think he really did want to see you. Maybe he will wake up for you this morning.”

“I hope so,” I said, and then went off to see him. He'd reacted to my name. Did that mean he thought I'd brought the trouble to him—or that he wanted to finally tell me the things he wouldn't say before?

When I got to the bedside, Ramon looked much the same as he had before—his face as crumpled as ever, his eyes closed. After speaking to him and getting no response, I reached out and touched his hand. His skin felt as dry and shriveled as it had before.

“I know you're getting better,” I said, just in case he could hear, but his muscles weren't working. “Just take your time. I'll be here for you. Don't worry about anything.”

“Ah, good morning.” I heard a male voice at the door, and I turned to see Dr. Nigawa. He picked up the clipboard at the foot of Ramon's bed.

“Good morning, Nigawa-sensei. I'm so glad you're here. I have a few questions about Mr. Espinosa's health.”

“Of course. But if it's about whether he'll ever completely emerge from the coma, I can't tell you. I'm afraid the nursing staff
became overly excited yesterday and interpreted random movements as communication.”