Bundori: A Novel Of Japan

Chapter 28

My informant claims he knows who the assassin was, sosakan-sama,” Hirata said. “Gomen nasai-I’m sorry to make you walk so far, but he wouldn’t come to the police compound. He doesn’t want anyone to know he works for me.”

“That’s all right, Hirata, you’ve done well,” Sano said. After the interview with O-tama, he desperately needed any evidence that might identify the Bundori Killer as someone other than Chamberlain Yanagisawa.

They were walking through Nihonbashi, toward their noon rendezvous with Hirata’s cautious informant, in hastily improvised disguise. They both wore wide wicker hats, and had left Sano’s expensively equipped horses at the police stables. Sano wore an old cloak of Hirata’s to hide the Tokugawa crests on his own garments. With his single short sword, shabby kimono, and no jitte, Hirata made a convincing ronin. Beneath his hat, his eyes glowed; his white smile flashed in boyish delight at Sano’s approval. Sano, in his excitement at receiving the news, had forgotten to discourage Hirata’s attachment. Now, though hating to hurt the young doshin again, he tried to counteract his spontaneous praise.

“Let’s just hope your informant is telling the truth,” he said coldly.

Hirata turned his face away, but not before Sano saw his smile fade. “This way, sosakan- sama,” he said in chastened tones.

They cut through the woodworkers’ district, where carpenters sawed, hammered, and nailed in open storefronts. Along with more wild tales about the murders, newssellers distributed reports on the continuing fire, whose smoke filtered the sunlight.

“The fire must have spread,” Sano said, concerned despite his relief at seeing the fearmongers’ attention focused on something, besides the murders. Edo ’s fire brigades usually managed to contain and extinguish the frequent blazes with admirable efficiency. “I wonder why it hasn’t been put out yet.”

“There’s trouble in that district,” Hirata said. “People have been burning candles and incense, to drive away the ghost. Last night, a house caught fire. And some men formed a gang to patrol the streets. They killed what they thought was a ghost carrying a severed head. But it was an old man with a jar of pickles. His sons went looking for revenge. A riot started. The fire spread because the fire brigade can’t get in to put it out.”

His worst fears realized, Sano looked away, speechless. The simmering tensions caused by the murders had finally erupted. All because he hadn’t caught the Bundori Killer soon enough. Sano knew that other factors had contributed to the disaster-Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s sabotage; the townspeople’s superstition and unruliness; the police’s failure to maintain order. But Sano couldn’t help feeling responsible. Guiltily he wondered whether, fearing what he must do if Yanagisawa was the killer, he was expending his best effort on the investigation.

He and Hirata followed an eerily quiet street that Sano couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The open storefronts contained unappealing merchandise: cheap, mismatched crockery; trays of stale cakes. The few pedestrians-all disreputable-looking samurai and male commoners-eyed them warily. Outside empty teahouses, the proprietors sat smoking pipes and lazing in the sun. Instead of trying to entice Sano and Hirata inside, they glared.

“This is it.” Hirata stopped before a teahouse. To the proprietor, he said, “Wild Boar is expecting us.”

The proprietor scrutinized them, then waved them inside. Sano and Hirata ducked under the faded blue curtain and entered the empty room. Hirata led the way through a doorway at its rear, from which muffled voices and laughter issued. Then Sano understood the real purpose of the deserted stores and teahouses.

Kneeling men jammed the dim back room. Their pipes added more smoke to the already thick air. Spread on the floor before them lay tobacco boxes, metal baskets of burning coals, cups and decanters of sake, playing cards and stacked coins. Intent on their games, the men ignored Sano and Hirata as they muttered their plays and bets, hands moving cards and coins with expert rapidity. This, like its neighboring establishments, was one of Edo ’s illegal gambling dens: domain of the city’s burgeoning underclass of thieves, con men, gangsters, and other outlaws. The “proprietors” outside were lookouts, on the watch for police or rival gangsters.

Hirata eased past the gamblers, motioning Sano to follow him through another curtained doorway. This led to a dank, urine-smelling passage. Shouts, laughter, and clanking noises echoed from its other end.

“Sosakan-sama, I want you to know that this isn’t my district,” Hirata whispered, obviously shamed by this lapse in police control. “I don’t like the practice of taking bribes to let these places operate. But they do have their uses!”

They entered a hot, stifling room, whose shuttered windows and flaring oil lamps gave it a sinister, nighttime look. The reek of vomit, smoke, sweat, and liquor assailed Sano. At the center of the large, low-ceilinged space, rough wooden railings denned a combat ring where two young men, clad only in loincloths and cotton headbands, circled each other, gazes locked in fierce concentration. Both held kusari-gama-short, sharp-bladed scythes with weighted chains attached to the ends of wooden handles. This was a weapon normally used by peasants to disarm maurauding swordsmen, but here employed in a perverted and dangerous form of combat. Each fighter gripped his weapon’s handle in his left hand; with his right, he spun the deadly chain in accelerating circles. Sweat glistened upon the fighters’ tensed muscles; their savage grimaces bared broken teeth. Old scars and fresh wounds crisscrossed their skin.

Cheering, hooting samurai and peasants crowded around the ring. Many of the latter had elaborate tattoos on their arms and torsos-a mark of the organized gangster clans. Sano had seen men like these before, but never in such numbers. Here must be where they hid out while honest men were at work. Hirata was right: What better source of information about illicit activities could there be than this?

Hirata led Sano to the ring’s far side, where a short, bald, muscular man was taking coins from eager customers-bets on the fight, judging from their shouts:

“Ten coppers on Yoshi!”

“Twenty on Goro!”

On closer inspection, Sano saw that the banker wasn’t much older than himself, and not really bald. His hair was cut so close to his domed head that in the dim light he’d at first appeared to have none. He had a crooked, flattened nose, puffy eyes and mouth. His kimono hung open to reveal a spectacular tattoo: a beautiful naked woman with winged demons suckling at her breasts.

Hirata approached the banker, who was apparently the informant, Wild Boar. “I’ve come for the goods I ordered,” he shouted over the audience’s cheers.

All traces of his usual deference had disappeared; he sounded brusque and rough, befitting his disguise, and confident like a man who expects satisfaction. Sano felt a touch of admiration for his assistant, who’d already demonstrated his talent for detection. Once again, he regretted the probable short tenure of their partnership.

Wild Boar jerked his head at Sano. “Who’s your friend?” He spoke out of one corner of his mouth. His half- closed eyes showed no whites; the dark irises watched the fighters.

“The goods are for him,” Hirata said. “Before you get the other half of your money, they have to meet his approval.”

In the ring, the tall fighter launched an assault on his opponent. The other man didn’t parry soon enough. The chain slammed across his chest. Shouts erupted from the audience. Wild Boar’s eyes followed the action as he retorted, “You said nothing about this when we made our deal. Who is he? Why should I trust him?”

Hirata shrugged and started to walk away. Sano, fighting the urge to protest, followed his bluff.

“Wait.” The informant’s hand shot out and grabbed Hirata’s sleeve. “You win.” Rancor closed his eyes still more as he positioned himself between Sano and Hirata. Keeping his gaze on the ring, where the second fighter flailed his chain and thrust his scythe in a series of counterattacks, he began to speak.

“The man of the melon seeds and the fox’s face was a ronin named Nango Junnosuke. A stranger to Edo, as snow is to summer.” Wild Boar’s speech had a poetic quality that contrasted sharply with his gruff voice. “He came here four nights ago. He said he was just arrived from the Kanto.”

Because the overlapping of shogun’s and daimyo’s authority had undermined police power in the eight agricultural provinces outside Edo, they’d become a center of criminal activity. Sano wasn’t surprised to learn that the assassin had come from there. And “Junnosuke” was the name on the torn note in his pouch.

“Daikoku, great god of fortune, didn’t bless Nango,” Wild Boar went on. “He lost much money on cards and