Shinju (14 page)

“I'm here about your friend, Noriyoshi,” Sano said, turning from his examination of the room and back to her face.

Her eyes, liquid and luminous, seemed to darken. Turning abruptly to the round mirror on her dressing table, she picked up a comb and began to arrange her hair, drawing the long, shining black mass up at the sides into a complicated loop at the back. Her movements had a languid, sensuous quality that Sano found extremely
erotic and arousing, despite his preoccupation with the murder case.

“I refuse to discuss Noriyoshi. And I'm expecting a guest.” Her voice trembled. “So get out. Now.”

The sadness and absence of animosity in her voice told Sano that grief, not anger, had provoked her rude dismissal. He hesitated, unwilling to cause her pain. But he didn't want to leave without learning what she knew.

Wisteria flung her comb to the floor and faced him. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Tears glistened in her eyes. “If you've come to tell me that Noriyoshi committed suicide for love of some silly little upper-class goose, and that his body will be put out on the riverbank for people to gawk at … well, I already know. The story is all over the quarter. So go. Leave me in peace.”

Sano decided to tell her as much of the truth as possible. “Noriyoshi didn't commit suicide. He was murdered.”

She stared at him. Sounds from the next room filled the silence: samisen music, with a male and a female voice singing softly. Her face registered first disbelief, then dawning hope.

“Murdered?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Can this be true? How do you know?”

“I can't tell you that,” Sano said. He didn't know if he could trust her, and he didn't want the story of the dissection spread around Yoshiwara. “But it's true.” He knelt beside her. “I want to find out why he was killed, and by whom. Will you help me?”

“How?”

“Tell me everything you know about Noriyoshi: his family background, what kind of man he was. Who his enemies were, and why one of them might have wanted to kill him.”

Wisteria's eyes took on a faraway look. She began to run her fingers through her hair. Maybe the action was a nervous habit, but everything about her suggested sex—her luxurious room with the bed ready, her faint, flowery scent, her rosy mouth. Sano, watching
her slender, soft hands, couldn't help imagining them caressing his body. He shifted nervously. The room seemed very warm.

“Everyone thinks Noriyoshi was a hustler who cared only for himself and his deals,” she said. “Mention his name, and they do this.”

Looking over her shoulder as if to make sure no one was watching, she smiled slyly and pretended to count money from an imaginary hand into her own. The vulgar pose looked incongruous on someone so elegant, but it gave Sano a vivid picture of what Noriyoshi must have looked like alive.

“But he was different with me.” She paused, then went on in a lower voice. “I came to Edo from Dewa Province when I was ten. My father sold me to a brothel's procurer because his crops had failed that year and he couldn't afford to feed me as well as my mother and my four brothers. I started out as a maid here at the Heavenly Garden. Do you know what that was like?”

Sano nodded. Young girls, unless they showed extraordinary promise, were virtual slaves in the pleasure houses. They worked long, hard hours cleaning the rooms, helping in the kitchens, and running errands. All for inadequate food and shelter. Many died before they reached maturity; most of the others could hope to rise no higher than maid or second-class prostitute. Few became celebrated first-rank
yūjo
, and even fewer ever gained independence from the men who owned them.

“I met Noriyoshi a year later, when he came to the house to deliver some
shunga
for the ladies to show their customers. He stopped in the kitchen for some tea, and I was there peeling vegetables.” A smile of reminiscence touched Wisteria's lips. “He asked me my name, where I was from. He must have known I was hungry; I was so thin my bones showed.” She touched the smooth rich flesh at her collarbone. “And my hair had started to fall out.

“After that, he brought me food every day when no one was watching. I was afraid that he would stop, but he didn't. I got healthy again. My hair grew back. And Noriyoshi started to walk
with me when I left the house on errands. He made me laugh at his jokes. And he started teaching me how to move, how to smile, how to talk to men. I must have learned my lessons well, because one day my owner said I didn't have to work in the kitchen anymore. He had the maids dress me up in fine clothes. And from then on …”

Her hand gestured toward her room and herself. “You know the rest of the story.”

“Yes.” Sano could guess how Noriyoshi, with his artist's eye, had spotted Wisteria's potential. He'd saved her from a harsh fate. But not unselfishly: he'd no doubt put her in his debt in order to avail himself of her favors. Sano's eyes went to the neckline of her kimono, where the swell of her breasts began. The blood surged to his loins. For a moment, he almost envied the dead man.

Wisteria's sharp glance rebuked him. “I know what you're thinking,” she snapped. “But it wasn't like that. Noriyoshi was never my lover. He preferred men, you see.”

That could explain the drawing on the artist's desk, Sano thought.

“When I heard how he died, I was angry,” Wisteria said sadly. “Not because he'd fallen in love with that girl, or because she had managed to make him want her the way he never wanted me. But because he never told me. Never confided in me, the way he did about everything else. And now that you tell me he was murdered”—she swallowed—“I feel so ashamed of my anger.”

Sano looked away tactfully as she struggled to control her tears. He was about to ask her again who Noriyoshi's enemies were, when someone rapped on the door.

Wisteria jumped to her feet. “Quick, quick!” She opened the cabinet door and gestured for Sano to get inside. “It's my client. He mustn't find you here.”

From inside the dark cabinet, Sano heard her slide open the door. He heard a low male voice, and Wisteria making excuses. “… indisposed … sorry. Perhaps tomorrow night … many
thanks.” The rustle of silk as they embraced. What would it feel like to hold her himself? He was glad when the door slid shut again, interrupting his fantasy. He stepped out of the cabinet to see Wisteria unceremoniously toss her client's gift—a silk fan—on the dressing table.

“Noriyoshi's enemies?” she said in response to Sano's question after they were settled again. “Which ones do you want to know about? All of them, or just the worst?”

“Start with the worst.”

Wisteria frowned, as if trying to decide who should head the list. “Kikunojo,” she said finally.

“Kikunojo?” Sano repeated in surprise. “Not the Kabuki actor? Why would he have killed Noriyoshi?”

She nodded, then shrugged. “Noriyoshi sometimes … accepted money from people in exchange for keeping their secrets.”

Blackmail. The ugly, unspoken word hung between them. Sano saw Wisteria flush and pitied her for having to expose her friend's flaws. But the flush reminded him of the way a woman looked when sensually excited, as did the way her breath quickened. His own excitement mounted. To add to his discomfort, the couple next door had abandoned their duet. A rhythmic thumping shook the thin walls. Sano looked away when Wisteria smiled briefly at him. She probably meant the smile as an apology for the noise, but to Sano, it said, “Wouldn't you like to do what they're doing?”

To cover his embarrassment, Sano asked quickly, “So Noriyoshi was paid for his silence. By who else besides Kikunojo?”

“One other that I know of. A sumo wrestler, but I don't know his name.”

Maybe one of Noriyoshi's other friends would know. “Did Noriyoshi collect a large payment shortly before his death?” Sano asked, thinking of the gold he'd found in the artist's room.

Wisteria's eyes misted. “Maybe. He said he was about to come into enough money to pay off my debt to the Heavenly Garden,
and to start his own gallery. We were going to run it together. He even had a building picked out. One with rooms behind it where we could live. But I don't know if he ever got the money.”

Sano decided not to tell her about the gold that Cherry Eater had taken. It would only hurt her. Besides, the sum he'd seen, while considerable, wasn't enough for such an enterprise. Noriyoshi must have been expecting much more. Maybe Kikunojo had killed him to avoid having to pay.

“Kikunojo might very well have murdered Noriyoshi,” Wisteria said bitterly, echoing Sano's thoughts. “He threatened to do it. And Noriyoshi's other enemies—” She reeled off a long list of people, both samurai and commoners, that Noriyoshi had owed money to, offended, or cheated. “I don't think they cared enough to kill him.”

Here at last was some information he could take to Magistrate Ogyu. Bowing, Sano said, “My thanks, Lady Wisteria. I'll do everything in my power to bring Noriyoshi's murderer to justice.”

He rose to leave … and found himself unable to move away from Wisteria. Her eyes drew him into their dark depths; her body reached for him without moving. He gazed at her helplessly, longingly.

“Wait.” Wisteria caught his sleeve. “Don't leave me alone.” She tried to pull him back down to the floor. “Stay with me tonight.”

Sano pulled away. His manhood, already erect, now sprang to full, demanding life at the thought of lying with her. He saw now that for the whole time he'd spent with her, she'd been subtly, deliberately seducing him. His whole body ached for her. But there was no way he could afford her price.

“I'm sorry, my lady,” he managed to say, removing his sleeve from her grasp. “Please.” Please don't make me humiliate myself by admitting that I'm too poor to have you.

She stood, playing the fingers of one hand down the length of his arm. “No, you don't understand. I ask nothing of you.” Her other hand stroked his chest. “Nothing except … you.”

“Why?” Sano couldn't believe that a
yūjo
who kept company with the wealthiest, most powerful men in Edo would want him. Who cares why, his body asked as his skin tingled under her touch.

“Because with you, I don't have to hide my sorrow.”

She stepped away from him. With a graceful gesture, she slipped the knot of her sash. Her kimono opened, then fell away from her body. Naked, she stood before him. Her breasts were small and round. Her arms and legs were slender, her skin a flawless golden ivory. At her shaven pubis, trademark of all
yūjo
, the delicate cleft of her womanhood showed. Beneath her perfume, Sano could smell her natural scent, pungent and intoxicating. She took his hands and lifted them to her breasts.

A moan escaped Sano when his fingers touched her nipples. Then he recoiled as she closed her mouth over his. Like other samurai, he'd experienced the pleasures of sex often enough—with his neighbors' maids, or with girls he met in the entertainment districts of Nihonbashi. But he'd never tried
seppun
, the exotic practice of touching mouths that had been introduced to Japan by the banished foreign barbarians.

“It won't hurt you,” she murmured, her breath warm against his lips. Amusement shimmered in her voice.

At first the slippery wetness of her lips repelled him. Then his desire flared, and he opened his mouth to admit her probing tongue. Who would have thought that this outrageous exchange of breath and saliva could be so arousing? He pulled away just long enough to cast off his garments, hating to take his mouth from hers, his hands from their exploration of her breasts and buttocks.

They sank onto the futon together, and she pressed her body to his with an ardor that surprised Sano. He'd heard many stories about
yūjo:
their expertise, the elaborate games they played with costumes, toys, pillow talk, and aphrodisiacs, their false but flattering
cries of ecstasy. But unless he was much mistaken, her sighs and arching back were not mere theatrics. He saw no cold mechanical technique in the way she caressed his chest and loins and grasped his erection—just a woman's simple and ancient desire for a man. And she couldn't have simulated the ardor that his hands read in her hard nipples, in the wetness between her legs. For a moment he wondered why she differed from other
yūjo
. Was this her special talent, her ability to want the men she bedded? Maybe she was trying to bury her sorrow over Noriyoshi's death in physical pleasure with someone whom she had no obligation to entertain. The reason didn't matter. Her apparently real lust for him brought Sano to the brink of climax. Almost swooning with pleasure, he entered her.

And stopped thinking altogether.

Sano had slipped so easily from wakefulness into sleep that he'd hardly been aware of the transition. Now he awoke with a jolt to the sound of quiet sobbing. He sat upright, throwing off the quilts. He looked toward the corner, where candle flame made a hollow of light.

Wrapped in a white robe, Wisteria knelt, her profile toward him, before a low table. On it she had arranged among the fruit, flowers, and guttering candles a collection of small objects. She bowed her head over them, lips moving as tears ran down her face. Sano crawled off the futon and moved to her side. He saw a cotton headband on the table, with a tobacco pipe and a hand of playing cards. The cards, each with a miniature
shunga
on the back, seemed hardly suitable for a Buddhist altar. Then he understood. Noriyoshi had painted the cards; the headband and pipe were his. Wisteria, in her white mourning clothes, was praying for Noriyoshi's spirit.

Both moved and embarrassed, Sano tried to think of something to say. He wasn't used to seeing such an open display of grief; most people kept their feelings hidden, even at funerals. Maybe he
should let her mourn in privacy. But he couldn't leave without somehow acknowledging what had happened between them. He laid a tentative hand on her shoulder.