The Art of Arrow Cutting Page 13

  Takumo whistled. “You mean he’s yakuza?”

  “Me mean? I’m not saying anything; I’m sure there are some honest people in the real-estate business. I think I met one of them once. But a friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, described Tamenaga as a power broker, a man who can hire and fire yakuza—”

  “A kuromaku.”

  “Yeah, that was the word he used. According to … my friend … Tamenaga borrowed his employers’ funds to bankroll yakuza loan sharks and split the profits. His employers, when they caught him, didn’t have him arrested— the yakuza are too powerful; even the big companies pay protection. But they started watching him and he moved on. Then when he’d accumulated enough, his yakuza contacts helped him clinch the occasional real-estate deal by intimidating the original owner, or by providing him with information for blackmail. Of course, I can’t prove any of this.

  “Then, in ’72, Tamenaga returned to America, in time for his daughter to be born here. He invested in an import firm and brought in electronics from Japan—calculators, security systems and surveillance equipment. Of course he cleaned up. By ’77, he was a silent partner in a lot of businesses, and owned a few outright. He bought the mansion in Glendale, put in a security system that made Jerry Falwell’s place look like Central Park, and effectively retired. Then his wife died in ’81—auto accident, no suspicious circumstances—and Tamenaga disappeared into his fortress and hasn’t come out since. Of course, he still keeps a Learjet at the Burbank Airport, and his employees fly it from time to time. And he keeps his passport up to date, just to prove he’s alive.

  “That’s all I could uncover on a day’s notice. I hope it helps—but I wish to hell you’d trust me.” He turned to Takumo. “Where did that money come from? Yakuza loan sharks?”

  “I won it at the Sunrise.”

  Mandaglione turned to his nephew imploringly. Mage nodded.

  “Okay, Mikey. If that’s the way you want it. I’ll be going back home tomorrow morning. Call me if you change your mind.”

  17

  Threads

  “Did you get any joy out of that?” Takumo asked as he bolted the apartment door behind him.

  Mage sighed. “Not much. Jenny Holdridge, Amanda’s friend, told me that Amanda was seeing a casino manager from Vegas named Tony, but that was all she knew. Amanda had gone there to play chess originally and became interested in blackjack, and this Tony became interested in her. Maybe she was using the key to take money from the casino, maybe he had something to do with having her killed, sent the rukoro-kubi or Crewcut after her or something, or maybe that was Tamenaga’s doing. It doesn’t explain why she was broke and in Totem Rock, but it’s the only link I can think of.”

  Takumo shook his head. “If that’s a link, then this” —he held his hands a foot apart— “is a chain and I could beat someone to death with it.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Mage collapsed onto the cushions and closed his eyes. He had never been a logician, or even a strong thinker, and he wished he could have told his uncle more of the truth; Dante Mandaglione liked mysteries, enjoyed piecing together elements to make a plot, rejecting stories that lacked internal logic. Unfortunately, Mandaglione was enormously skeptical of the supernatural, as befitted a fantasy writer. He would need the evidence of his own eyes… .

  Eyes. He couldn’t think like his uncle, couldn’t think in words, but a diagram, something he could see— “Do you have any scrap paper?”

  “Sure. By the phone.”

  Maybe a diagram would help. At the top of the page he wrote “AMANDA,” underlined it and added “Mathematical prodigy,” “Leukemia,” “Cured leukemia—magic?” and “Murdered (by rukoro-kubi?).” Next to this he wrote “TAMENAGA,” “Mathematical prodigy,” and drew a double-headed arrow between the two.

  Takumo was right. It wasn’t much of a connection.

  He wrote “Canadian” under Amanda’s list, then “CREWCUT,” “Canadian,” “Sunrise Casino,” and added “Sunrise Casino” to Tamenaga’s column. It still didn’t add up to much.

  “RUKORO-KUBI.” “Japanese.” “Killed Amanda?”

  He couldn’t prove that either. He thought for a moment, then added “Killed Higuchi?” and drew arrows between that and “Sunrise Casino.” It seemed easy enough for the rukoro-kubi to have entered a locked room via an eight-inch-wide twelfth-story window that opened from the outside, or to have locked the door from the inside to cover his tracks before exiting via the window. He added “Magic” to the list and returned his attention to “AMANDA.” “Key — Magic.”

  “Key — whose?”

  Ah, there’s the rub, as Mandaglione would have said. He fingered the braided hair around his neck. Where would Amanda have gotten such an item? Inherited it from her parents? And how had she learned to use it? And if she’d had it earlier, why had she had to undergo chemotherapy, or radiotherapy, or whatever it was you did to relieve leukemia and make your hair fall out?

  He reached for the photograph of Amanda and stared. How long had she had the key? How long did it take to almost but not quite grow your eyebrows back? A few days? You could grow a mustache in two weeks. Call it a week. Could she have taken the key from Higuchi? Maybe the key would explain Higuchi’s success as a gambler. And his death; if he’d lost it, wouldn’t that have been a reason for suicide? Or for whomever he owed money— probably Tamenaga—to kill him?

  He fingered the key again, wondering where Higuchi might have come by it. Made it? Stolen it? Won it in a poker game? Been given it as a wedding present?

  He stared at the diagram again. What else might Amanda and Tamenaga have in common? “Charlie …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Dante called Tamenaga a financial wizard. What if he were really a wizard?”

  Takumo laughed. “Man, just because we don’t know how to make money, doesn’t mean it takes supernatural powers.”

  “I’m serious. The key must come from somewhere. Someone had to make it. You said yourself it was a Japanese-English pun—”

  “A thong in a thkeleton key,” quipped Takumo. Mage winced. “Okay, man, sure someone made it … but not Tamenaga-sama. Unlocking doors, winning at roulette, jamming guns, picture-perfect jump kicks, even curing leukemia… . Statistical freaks, outrageous fortune, absurd luck; the Seven Fortunate Gods used to grant that sort of favor like your God turns wine to blood—no offense. In extreme cases, they steered some mortal help in a worshiper’s direction—a Samaritan samurai, a doctor, an ally. If all else failed, they might teleport someone to safety. This key does nearly all of that like some magical Swiss Army knife, and even the Magnificent Seven didn’t give away talismans like that without some freakin’ heavy dues; they liked their ego massage as much as any self-respecting gods, and that meant that people had to plead a little occasionally.” Takumo glanced at his watch, pulled his T-shirt over his head and walked toward his bedroom. “With this, there’s no pleading required; you’re like Hamlet’s lawyer, you can circumvent God or any number of gods—”

  “Until the battery runs flat,” said Mage grimly, “or the bill arrives.”

  Takumo stopped, raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Karma debt.”

  “Or something more concrete. Besides, maybe we’re not circumventing your gods.” Mage glanced at the diagram, sighed and squeezed the paper into a ball. “Maybe we’re going exactly where they want us to go.”

  Mage woke trembling and sweating and glanced at the clock. Ten past eight—no, it was much too dark, even for smoggy L.A. Ten to four. Jesus.

  He lay there, eyes open, and tried to remember his dream. Amanda—younger and happier—waltzing with Tony Higuchi over a black- and red-tiled floor. Sometimes they were naked, showing tattoos over Higuchi’s arms and shoulders, Amanda’s blond pubis. Sometimes there were numbers on the floor. Soon the dance became passionate, then frenzied, while the floor spun about them. Amanda scratched Higuchi’s back deeply, her long nails staying in his flesh. Her legs wrapped around his
thighs; his small cock stabbed into her (now utterly hairless) vulva. An ivory-colored bishop appeared behind them, blessing them as blood ran down Higuchi’s legs and pooled at his feet. Higuchi stroked Amanda’s hair, which came loose in his hand and wrapped itself around his wrist and both their throats. There was a sudden painful burst of silence, and half of Higuchi’s head disappeared—

  That was all he could remember—and more than he wanted to. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply and tried to relax.

  Tamenaga, too, was having a sleepless night. He had called for his pillow girl at eleven and dismissed her forty minutes later. In that time she had not seen him, though he had seen her, had watched her in the shower, had watched Sakura search her. In fact, the girl (he had never asked her name) had not seen Tamenaga’s face since the day after she arrived from Manila, and had never seen him naked; Tamenaga kept his bedroom as dark as possible, preferred sex with the woman facing away from him, and disliked mirrors. Occasionally he lost control sufficiently to bring his irezumi to life; a few of his women had been bitten by the cobra or attacked by the python before he’d managed to will them back into motionless ink. No price would have convinced them to return to his bed after this, and he had given them to Sakura and Yukitaka. One day he would have to ask them what they were doing with the bones.

  This girl had been with the house for nearly a year now, and he was almost fond of her. She was petite, attractive, obedient, and a competent masseuse. Tamenaga preferred his women to be active participants. He had tried coupling with Sakura’s mindless victims and found it absolutely unsatisfying. He also refused to have the girls blinded: it reduced their resale value. He did not insist on virginity; his only requirements were good health, good looks, and a complete ignorance of Japanese. Lack of English was also appreciated. He paid the karayuki traders well, and they asked no questions.

  Tonight the girl had crept timorously to the door, knowing that she had been unable to satisfy the kuromaku. Tamenaga had not lost control; indeed, despite the girl’s erotic skills, he had barely been able to maintain an erection. He had gruffly ordered her not to send for one of the other girls (he kept a stable of six) and had hit the showers as soon as she was gone. Then, clad only in a towel, he had stomped into his office and slumped into his swivel chair.

  He closed his eyes and fingered the thong of braided hair he had worn around his neck from the age of six. The oyabun of the local yakuza gang had been running a gambling house; Tamenaga Tatsuo, already orphaned, had come begging for food and corrected the oyabun’s calculations. The oyabun, Utsugi Dan, had kept him on and encouraged the gamblers to bet against his mathematical skills, giving him problems to solve mentally, and checking the answers on paper or with an abacus. Later Utsugi had employed him as a treasurer; Tamenaga had memorized the oyabun’s financial records, eliminating the need for paperwork that could be used as evidence against him.

  Utsugi’s major source of income was the black market in food; people were trading antiques, family heirlooms, gold, pearls, anything for food. The talismans, and the accompanying scroll, had arrived in a small wooden box as part of a job lot with other stolen antiques. Utsugi had been more attracted by an old scroll of Ukiyo-e, erotic art, and a tessen decorated with a map of Japan, but he expected the empire to fall within a year and he was confident of his own ability to sell anything to the invading Americans. Tamenaga had opened the box a few weeks later and read the scroll. It described the talismans as payment from the god Hotei to an obsessive roadside gambler and hinted at their power to focus the wearer’s ki. Tamenaga had kept them, replacing them with braided locks of hair bought from a young girl, and he practiced using them to influence dice.

  The scroll was lost in the bombing of Tokyo, as was the overconfident Utsugi, but Tamenaga had thrived. He had taken the foci with him to America, explaining them away as a memento of his mother. There he had discovered higher mathematics—algebra, probability theory, calculus. Geometry and trigonometry failed to excite him; he preferred numbers and abstractions. He fell in love with computers, primitive as they were at the time; it was a love that would be reciprocated nearly forty years later, when he used the focus to discreetly manipulate the stock exchange computers and hasten the Wall Street crash of ’87.

  After returning to Japan, he renewed his links with the yakuza—now stronger than ever, thanks to the black market and U.S. military intelligence’s need for somebody to spy on the communists and weaken the unions—and had gone so far as to get himself tattooed to show his allegiance to the clan. He had almost panicked the first time the cobra and centipede had come to life and slithered along his arms toward the woman he was fucking, but he had —after much effort—managed to control them by slowing his heartbeat. The other irezumi had been added later; the chain mail had proved useful on a number of occasions.

  Tamenaga opened his eyes and slowly spun the chair around. After the focus, the most valuable item in the office was a picture of Hotei watching two birds fighting, painted by Miyamoto Musashi. It was one of the few artworks in the house that Tamenaga had actually bought. He was equally proud of the Murasama dai-sho that stood in the sword rack behind his desk; they had belonged to one of his superiors in the Fuki Bank, a man who was also a compulsive gambler. Tamenaga had slowly bankrupted him by manipulating the dice against him, all the while being careful not to win the game himself, until the banker had been forced to borrow from a sarakin, a yakuza loan shark. Eventually he had given the sarakin the treasured swords as security for a last loan—and committed suicide within a month, when the bank had decided against promoting him.

  Tamenaga stared at the dai-sho and smiled. They were of no practical value to him, but they were a tangible symbol of his first victory, and not merely a victory over an unimaginative sarariman—a far more dignified term than the apt American expression of “wage slave.” At the time, it had felt like a victory over the entire hierarchy of Japanese society. And Murasama blades were notoriously lethal. Legend had it that if one were dipped into a river, leaves floating in the water would be diverted toward the blade and their own destruction. The swords were also said to lure their wearer away from moderation and into conflict—and ultimately, to his death.

  Tamenaga’s fascination with the dai-sho had quickly faded; they soon made him feel less like Musashi and more like Kikuchiyo, the peasant masquerading as a warrior in The Seven Samurai. He had never learned to use them well. Knives and mankiri-gusari were easier to conceal and just as effective against unarmed opponents. But now he stared at the katana and wakizashi and brooded.

  Which was the leader? Magistrale or Takumo? Or someone else? Perhaps there was no leader. Perhaps the drifters were more like the dai-sho: Magistrale the long katana, Takumo the small wakizashi. A partnership… .

  Tamenaga reached for the katana and unsheathed it, admiring the keenness of the blade. How did you destroy a partnership? By dividing it. He returned the blade to its sheath and placed the sword back on the rack. Then he spun his chair around and reached for the dossiers on his desk.

  18

  Nothing Like the Sun

  To Mage’s profound irritation, the forensics team had not released his possessions by Saturday morning. He had little money left—he had refused to accept any more of Takumo’s winnings or to borrow from Mandaglione— and after buying a new pair of Reeboks and a roll of fuji film, he had barely enough for bus fares. He spent the morning sight-seeing and finally stopped, slightly footsore, at Echo Park, concluding that there was nothing to see except the occasional pretty girl—at least, nothing free.

  Kelly spent the morning in court; the jury had acquitted her client of rape and she was now wondering whether justice had actually been served. She was in an even worse mood than Mage when they met, and five minutes into the conference she stood and snapped, “I can’t win this without a little help! Maybe—maybe!—you could charm your way into an acquittal in Calgary: sex appeal and the presumption of innocence aren’t going to help you here at all
. All you have is the one alibi, and you won’t even take a polygraph on that!” She sighed. “You know the cops expect you to jump bail, don’t you?”

  Mage shrugged. “Has forensics come up with any explanation for Amanda’s not having leukemia?”

  “What?”

  “Have they even tried?”

  “No.”

  “Has anyone?”

  “I don’t think so. The press hasn’t got hold of it—”

  “Because if they did, forensics’d have to explain it. Right?” He watched her face carefully.

  “It doesn’t really help your case—”

  “Get off my case for a minute.”

  “Even if the body wasn’t Amanda Sharmon’s, it still matches your photo, and it was still found outside the youth hostel. Or are you trying to dispute the cause of death?”

  Mage sighed. “I can just see the headlines if I did: ‘Strangling Cures Cancer.’ No, I was just curious.” And wishful thinking had raised its artificially pretty head too—he was still hoping that Amanda might somehow be alive. Maybe if they let him see the body, he could believe, one way or the other… .

  But the exchange had confirmed his suspicions about Kelly. She was still hell-bent on the cancer cure, and he might be able to turn that to his advantage. But best save it for emergencies or he might end up in a hospital, or worse, as someone’s guinea pig.