Tora left the soothsayer, greatly troubled by his prediction, and almost fell over the beggar who was crouching at the bottom of the steps. The screams of pain jerked him out of his abstraction.
The beggar was rolling in the dirt in apparent agony. “Oh, my back,” he groaned. A small crowd gathered. “My rib’s broken. Aaah! Fetch a doctor, quick. He kicked me! Oh, Amida, the pain!” His scabby knees drawn almost to his chin, the beggar rocked back and forth in the dust like a large ball of rag and bone, his face contorted and his arms clutched across his middle. Both his face and arms were covered with assorted scratches.
Tora did not believe for an instant that he could have injured the man-or that a man with broken ribs would roll around that way. He knew this for what it was: a ploy to extract money from an unwary shopper. The broken rib was an outright lie.
A crowd grew with a speed that proved the spectacle of human pain was of greater interest than shopping for food, eating, or even standing in line to buy amulets against disease. True, some of the regulars lost interest when they saw who was writhing on the ground, but others remained to see how the beggar’s victim would react.
Tora glanced at the crowd. Some people were glaring at him. One woman shook her fist, and somebody shouted, “You young hoodlums think you can walk all over us. Just you wait!”
It was not clear what he was to wait for, but Tora bent and hissed into the wailing beggar’s ear, “Cut that out and I’ll stand you some wine.”
The beggar brought the noise down to a soft whimper and whispered back, “How much? And how about some food?”
“Very well, a meal with a flask of wine in the restaurant by the gate. But I want some information.” Louder, he said, “Let me help you up.”
The beggar unwrapped himself and staggered to his feet. Tora made a show of checking him over for injuries, a process which involved some very realistic groans and squeals from the beggar. Then he put an arm around him and said, “You’ll do, but let’s get you something to eat.”
The crowd parted, murmuring encouragement, the regulars smirked, and Tora and the beggar staggered to the restaurant. There a waiter barred the door.
“Not in here!”
Tora considered: The beggar was filthy and he did not look much better. He pulled out his last coppers and held them up. “I’m buying.”
The waiter scowled and pointed to the outside benches. “You can sit there. What do you want?”
“Give him a bowl of soup and a flask of your cheapest.”
“Hey,” cried the beggar, “you promised me a full meal and some decent wine.”
The waiter spat and disappeared inside. When they were seated, Tora looked around to make sure that nobody paid attention, then leaned across to grab the beggar by the collar and jerk him close. “Listen, you stinking piece of garbage,” he snarled, “don’t think I don’t know what you pulled back there. I watched you do the same stunt before. You’re here because I want some information. And if you ever try that trick on me again, I’ll see to it that you get a public whipping.”
The beggar squeaked. When Tora released him, he rubbed his scrawny neck, where the scratches started bleeding, and grumbled, “Don’t threaten me. I know you, even in those old rags. You’re the one used to hanker after that blind slut. What happened? Lost your job?”
Tora glared. “Watch your mouth when you speak of the dead, turd. As for my clothes, I’m undercover. I’m working with the police on her murder.” It was stretching the truth a bit, but that couldn’t hurt with scum like this.
To Tora’s surprise the man’s face turned pasty white and his eyes boggled. “Here, I know nothing about that,” he stammered, jumping up.
Tora grabbed him by the arm and flung him back on his seat. “Not so fast!” He eyed him with disgust, then reminded himself that beggars shied away from police matters because all too often they made convenient scapegoats. The beggar gulped, ran a grimy hand through the greasy strands of hair that hung to his shoulders, and hitched up his ragged shirt, revealing that he had not bothered to wear a loincloth. He looked like a living piece of garbage. Worse, he stank like garbage, and fear had intensified the aroma.
Tora moved downwind and kept his eyes on the creature’s face, but found this equally nauseating. The shifty eyes squinted everywhere but at Tora, and the thick lips were cracked and had traces of dried white spittle in the corners. “Relax,” Tora said, “you’re not in trouble. I just want to ask some questions.”
The beggar croaked, “You sure don’t look like police.”
“I told you, I’m in disguise. Tell me what you know about Tomoe’s regular customers. Especially those engaged in illegal activities.”
“Engaged in illegal activities?” mocked the beggar, who was getting his nerve back. “And what might those be? I’m just an ignorant bastard, you know.”
“Don’t jerk me around. You know what I mean: gambling, robbery, burglary, selling children into prostitution, and cheating old people.”
Tora had heard that criminals looked at their work as a kind of trade and formed guilds or families that were run by a boss, or father figure, and staffed with members who were ranked as officers, soldiers, and apprentices. He figured that Tomoe had tangled with a gang boss.
The beggar’s expression turned shifty. His eyes moved constantly-like black flies crawling on a moldy dumpling-from Tora, to other restaurant patrons, to the passing crowd in the market, then back to Tora again. “I wouldn’t know, but if you’re looking for her killer, you’d better check the toms she took home with her. She put out to anybody who paid enough. That back door of hers might as well have been a curtain. I figure one of them felt cheated and cut her up a bit. They say there was a lot of blood.” The beggar licked his lips and grinned. “Maybe he even liked doing it.”
Tora narrowed his eyes, but there was nothing to be gained by hitting the beggar now. Better let him talk.
The waiter came and slapped food and drink down on the bench between them. “Ten coppers. You pay now.”
Tora suppressed a grimace. That left him with only three coppers, and he had a long day ahead of him. He paid, then snatched the wine flask from the beggar’s greedy fingers. One of them was missing the tip. “Talk first!” he snapped.
The beggar stuck out his tongue and reached for the soup bowl.
“I said, ‘Talk first!’ Tora shouted and pounded the flimsy bench. Some of the soup splashed out.
“Now see what you’ve done,” complained the beggar. “Oh, all right. She used to sing to a guy owns a training school on the other side of town. They say that’s not all he does. He comes here with his friends: a big, mean- looking guy and a young kid. I don’t know their names.”
“Is his name Kata?”
Surprise flashed in the beggar’s eyes, but he said, “How should I know? He didn’t introduce himself to me.”
Tora reached for the soup.
“All right. It may have been.”
Tora relaxed. He was pretty sure now that the beggar knew Kata. He pushed wine and soup toward the man and thought about the interesting implications. Not only was he looking forward to getting his hands on that sly fellow Kata, but there was also the Haseo look-alike. And that one had been seen near the watchtower, not far from where Tomoe worked. He hoped they would not recognize him in his rags but planned to apply a handful of dirt to his face before paying his visit. Impatient now to be gone, Tora watched with ill-concealed irritation as the beggar slurped his soup and drank his wine. The sight turned his stomach. Getting up, he told the filthy creature, “Stay out of trouble or else!” and walked away.
Kata’s training school was in session again, but the crowd outside seemed much smaller than last time. They hardly gave Tora a second glance; he was one of them, a shabby, dirty fellow without a job and nothing better to do on a fine day than to watch some fighting. Tora squatted next to a scruffy youngster and scanned the training hall.
Kata was demonstrating a sword technique to three older students. It looked like an aggressive move against
