would be waiting for the right moment, for the daimyo would also think of combining death and orgasm. It would be another clever practical joke. He felt Yuiko's arms around his back. The arms would be torn off. Various images of horror flitted through his mind, but he could watch them calmly as his body went through the movements set off by their love play. Yet the pleasure wasn't altogether automatic. The green haze of the fern leaves sitting high on their thin stalks, and gracefully bending their fanlike forms, the fragrance of moss and fir needles, the deep gray streaked with the glistening blue of the stone walls of the cave and the white-capped waves of the enormous lake, visible in between the naked fern stalks, all fused with Yuiko's body and he felt as if everything, with nothing excepted, not even the corpses of the bird and the cat on the hands of the Buddha statue and the tufted eyebrows of the old man who seemed so bent on intimidating and manipulating him, had met when Yuiko sobbed and he groaned and the moment was reached.
\\ 24 /////
She noticed the slight bulge in the right pocket of his jacket as they dressed again. 'Another gun?' she asked. 'You have one under your armpit, isn't one enough?'
'A radio transmitter,' he said, and showed the small gadget to her. 'It has a button, see? If I press it Dorin should come, but he'll need time, I'll be on my own for a while. The daimyo has picked a good location.'
She shrugged. 'Not so good,' she said. 'If the daimyo is on that fishing boat or on the island here, he is either protected by one other man or not at all. You should be able to kill him, and if he calls Kono's boat you will see it approach and Dorin can come and help you out.'
He nodded. 'Yes. So?'
'So I don't know what the daimyo is planning either,' she said, 'and I don't care so much now. I think it will be all right, maybe he wants to make friends.'
'By showing me a dead bird with a large yellow eye, turning on a plastic string? Watched by a dead cat?'
She shrugged again. 'They were on the Buddha's hands. The Buddha is not an evil figure. I think the daimyo wants to make friends. He is a very strange man, his behavior often seems erratic, but when his plans come to some sort of fulfillment you can see that there has been a firm line of thought all along. The manager of the Golden Dragon said that once, and he had been with the daimyo for many years. They were in the air force together during the war. The daimyo was a kamikaze pilot.'
They had left the cave and were wandering about on the small island, following a narrow path made out of flattopped rocks, set at intervals of about a yard. He stopped and she walked into him. 'Sorry,' he said, 'but I didn't understand you. Kamikaze pilots died as they made their attack, didn't they? They just flew their airplanes straight into their target and blew themselves to little pieces. Isn't that right? But the daimyo is still around.'
She laughed and sat down on a low bench. They had a perfect view of the lake again and de Gier sighed with pleasure and sat down next to her. 'Beautiful,' he said. 'Very peaceful. We are even protected from the wind here.'
She held his hand as she explained that the island had once been an imperial possession and that the state still looked after it, paying the gardeners who cleaned it at least once a week, pulling out the small weeds, watering the mosses and lichens, cutting dead treebranches and leaves and even washing down some of the rocks. There had never been building on the island and the emperors had used the beaches and the hill as they were using them now; they had strolled about and made love perhaps and had eaten their meals from hampers. The two Buddha statues had been placed to enhance the island's quietness and detachment.
'Two?' de Gier asked. 'You'll see the other one soon,' she said. 'According to the note on the map it sits on the top of this hill. You still want to know about the daimyo?'
'Please.'
She giggled. 'It's a funny story really. You see, the kamikaze pilots died for the emperor, it was considered to be an honor to be selected to kill the enemy and commit suicide simultaneously, so they would receive a letter signed by the emperor himself and there was a big ceremony before they went to their planes. The daimyo was a young man then, not yet thirty I think, and he marched up to the platform where his commanding officer was waiting for him. He was dressed in his best uniform and he had a white strip around his forehead, white cotton with some special design, maybe the character for death, glorious death. The commanding officer said a few words and bowed and he bowed back and then he marched back to his colleagues, all standing to attention. The commanding officer poured sake, special holy sake, sent by the emperor from Tokyo, and the label was stamped by his seal, a red seal. Each pilot was given a big cup but most of them wouldn't drink for they considered themselves to be unworthy to swallow the sacred alcohol. They left their glasses untouched and the daimyo drank them all. He likes to drink; even now he sometimes gets very drunk although the doctor doesn't want him to drink. He goes to the best heart specialist in Kobe and every time the doctor asks if he has been drinking but the daimyo says no, never. To us he says that sake saved his life once and he hasn't forgotten it. Now it can kill him, if it wants, but it doesn't want to apparently for he is very alive.'
'He got drunk on the holy liquor, eh?' de Gier asked, and grinned.
'He did. He staggered to his plane and got it into the sky but he couldn't find the sea, he just flew around for a long time and when he ran out of petrol he came back. Everybody was very annoyed with him for all his colleagues died as they attacked the American fleet but the daimyo had to be carried to bed. I think he would have been punished, but a few days later Japan surrendered and everything changed. Nobody cared anymore and the emperor became an ordinary man, a nice man with spectacles who looks at marine growths through a very expensive and accurate microscope. Even I have seen the emperor, very close, I could have touched him, I cried but I knew he was an ordinary man, not a god. The daimyo always knew the emperor wasn't a god and he refused to die when he was ordered to die. He says he prefers to pick his own time and place.'
De Gier was looking at the sea when she finished her story. 'Yes,' he said. 'That's a good tale, even if it isn't true, but maybe it is true. It seems your boss is both original and courageous. I hope he really wants to make friends with us, I'd like to work with him.'
'What do you do in your own country?' she asked. 'Do you sell drugs too, and stolen goods, and do you own restaurants and bars and so on?'
'Yes,' he said. 'Our business isn't as big as what the daimyo has here. But it boils down to the same thing, I think.'
'I don't like the drug business,' she said, and moved closer to him. 'It isn't so bad here but I saw some of its effects in Tokyo. Tokyo is outside our territory. There are a lot of junkies over there, very sad people. I know the daimyo sometimes sells heroin and cocaine. Hard drugs are for sale in the Golden Dragon too, but the clients have to ask, we don't push.'
'Yes,' de Gier said, 'but the trade is profitable. If you don't sell the stuff somebody else will. Let's go and have a look at that statue.'
They climbed the path and she showed him how even the smallest twigs had been removed from the fir needle carpet, how mosses were encouraged everywhere, how the perfect rock formations had been carefully planned, each rock being carried uphill on a specially made wooden frame. But in spite of all the meddling the island looked natural, a gem of great beauty, undisturbed and serene.
They found the statue or, rather, they found an empty shrine, a sloping stone roof resting on thin pillars.
'Didn't you say there was a Buddha statue here?' de Gier asked, stepping back to get a better view of the small structure. 'Did somebody take the Buddha away?'
'This is Buddha,' she said. 'He has many shapes. This is one of them.' He turned and looked down the hill; below them sat the other Buddha.
'So what is this then,' he asked, pointing at the pagoda; 'the Buddha's mind?'
'I took a class in religion when I studied to become an interpreter,' she said. 'Our teacher explained that the Buddha trascended mind.'
'What does that mean?'
'No idea,' she said.
He took her by the arm and they walked back to the beach. 'An interpreter makes a lot of money,' he said.
