The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (17 page)

"So, tell me about last night," I asked after the tea's heat poured down my sore throat, making it feel better.

"Well, Enrique was still tending bar when I arrived, so I got a drink and circulated a little. My ears perked up when I heard the Kayama School mentioned."

I shook my head. "What? I can't believe the flower-arranging ladies would go there!"

"Actually, these gossips were guys, speaking in Spanish. One of them had a jeans jacket embroidered in Spanish. Could your aunt do a cherry blossom appliqué on my favorite pair of Levi's? It might be a good way to cover up the hole you say is obscene."

I had to keep him on task. "Che. Was that the word you saw on the jacket?"

"That was it! Is it a name, or what?"

"I think it's a nickname that means something like good friend; an informal form of address. Did you ever hear of Che Guevara, the Argentine activist who led various Latin American government overthrows?"

"Not really. Who knew you'd need Spanish to navigate Tokyo? Aside from a few words, I understood nothing of their gabfest." Richard's face puckered as he sipped his tea. I guessed that he didn't like it.

"Why didn't you ask Enrique to translate?" It seemed that he'd missed major information.

"Like I told you, he was behind the bar, and I wasn't sure whether the conversation was really worth anything. Still, I thought of you, and I wrote down the words I heard on a cocktail napkin." He whipped out a wrinkled piece of pale blue tissue pock-marked with words.

I read through them.
Kayama School. Mitsutan. St. Luke's Hospital. Rei Shimura. Yanaka.

"They know about my poisoning. Look at all these linked words!" I was nearly beside myself with a mixture of rage, fear, and elation. At last I had some proof of a connection.

"Chill out. Lots of people knew you got sick."

"Not really," I said. "It wasn't in the papers. Did you tell anyone about it?"

"I told Enrique. He wanted to know why you weren't at the party Saturday night."

Could Enrique have been the leak, speaking to Che at an earlier point? Or was the leak Takeo Kayama, who had gone through my address book and knew where I lived? "The men you overheard mentioned this neighborhood. Did you hear any numbers? Were they discussing my street address?"

"It's hard to tell. Like I told you, they were speaking mostly Spanish. There were a couple of Japanese guys who seemed to understand as well. Or maybe those guys were Latin Americans of Japanese heritage. It was difficult to tell."

"If only I could get Lieutenant Hata and a Spanish translator to stake out Salsa Salsa," I thought aloud.

"Don't do anything to cause Enrique trouble." Richard glowered at me. "He's my everything."

"Shouldn't you be spending your time getting to know Enrique outside the bar? It sounds as if everything that's going on between you is washed down by too many Caipirinhas."

"At least I have a relationship. That's more than I can say for you, Miss Congeniality."

"How does Enrique know Che?" I ignored his insult. "Was there any sign of familiarity?"

Now Richard grinned. "I saved the best for last. It turns out they know each other slightly, so I asked Enrique to introduce me on the way out. Che's a pretty friendly guy. He even offered us a kind of short-term job, but we said no."

"What kind of job?"

"He said it had something to do with gardening. Enrique assumed that it was off-the-books—you know, illegal. He's got a legit job at Salsa Salsa and a visa in good standing, so he obviously wouldn't take a risk like that."

My heartbeat felt stronger all of a sudden. Either I had gotten a case of jitters from the ginseng tea or I had a terrific idea brewing. "Do you think you could convince Enrique to find out more about that job?"

Richard shook his head, making his pewter crucifix earring fly out at a ninety-degree angle. "Enrique's adamant about spending all of his free time with me."

"If it's short-term, why don't you do it? Just once?"

Richard ran a finger around the edge of his moist tea bowl. "I suppose that I wouldn't mind taking off my shirt and getting a tan. Enrique makes me feel so white."

I took Richard's tea bowl from him. "Did you know I could read tea leaves?" I asked. As I stared at the dark pieces of sea vegetable clumped on the bottom of Richard's empty bowl, I said, "The pattern here reveals that it would be good for you to do something outdoors."

Richard sighed. "You sound like Lila. But the option she always presents me with is taking the kids to Tokyo Disneyland."

"This will be so much better than that phony playland," I promised. "All I'm asking you to do is dig up a little dirt. An afternoon's worth."

"For you, babe, I'll dig it up in spades," Richard said, taking his bowl and clinking it against mine.

He was in.

There are times when I think my actions make perfect sense. Then, a few hours later, I realize that I'm crazy.

As I walked out of the teashop with Richard, I was caught up in the heat of the moment, the certainty that Enrique and Richard were the perfect moles to infiltrate Che's organization. I went to bed stoked on ginseng and the promise of discovery.

I woke up the next morning, though, with an unbearable need to use the toilet, and feelings of doom. Richard could no more carry off an underground sting than I could pass a flower-arranging exam. And there was the question of whether Enrique could be trusted, given that he'd fallen into my friend's arms just a few days earlier.

"Do you want me to answer the telephone, Rei-chan?" Aunt Norie murmured from her futon. I had just flushed the toilet and was coming back into the bedroom, not having heard the telephone's first few rings.

"No, I'll get it." As Lieutenant Hata's voice began speaking into my answering machine, I took the cordless receiver back into the bathroom. Running the water in the sink so that Aunt Norie couldn't hear my voice, I began the saga, starting with the mysterious haiku I'd received two days earlier.

"That was written by Basho," he said after I'd recited the three lines. "I had to learn that poem in school."

"Do you understand why it makes me nervous?" I asked.

"Not particularly. It is a tradition in Japan to present poetry to others as a gift. In fact, during the classical period, young men would send poems as thank-you letters to the courtesans they had affairs with. I'm surprised that you cannot guess who sent it."

I was silent until I realized the implication of his comment. "I'm not having an affair with Takeo."

"Well, then, why did you deploy me to the kitchen so you could have a private conversation? And you aided in his escape," Hata added, his bitterness practically cracking the telephone line.

"Takeo left the apartment on his own. Its not like he's a fugitive," I said. "The one you should be suspicious of is Che Fujisawa. There's a good chance he or one of his gang poisoned me."

"Miss Shimura, you may need to return to St. Luke's Hospital, because it sounds as if you are having delusions! Since when has an environmental group become a gang?"

"Two nights ago, at a nightclub called Salsa Salsa, Che and a friend were overheard talking about the Kayama School, Mitsutan, St. Luke's Hospital, and Yanaka."

"Really?" He sounded wary. "There was no news about your sickness in the newspaper."

"Yes, they would have no reason to know. Obviously they are involved."

"What did you hear exactly?" For the first time in our conversation, I heard the scratching of a pen. He was taking notes.

"It was overheard by a friend," I said, mindful that Richard hadn't wanted me to identify him or Enrique. "The conversation was in Spanish, so only the few Japanese words spoken were noted."

"Where is Salsa Salsa?"

"On Roppongi-dori, heading toward Nishi-Azabu. But you can't just walk in; you'll stick out terribly. And you'll need a Spanish interpreter." All of a sudden I was worried.

"We have plenty of those. And I do have plain clothes." I could hear the smile in his voice.

I thanked Lieutenant Hata for his time and hung up. Aunt Norie had been knocking on the door for a few minutes, and I could no longer ignore her.

"You don't have to hide your telephone calls from me. I know it was that policeman." Aunt Norie leaned in the doorframe, her yukata robe snugly belted over flannel pajamas. Her hair was tousled and pale blue traces of her nighttime beauty face mask clung to her skin, making her look like a sci-fi character out of a comic book.

"I didn't want to disturb your sleep," I said.

"Leave things to him," Norie said. "He can find out better, and it is dangerous to get close to the Kayamas. I know."

"Did something happen between you and the Kayamas? Tell me."

"Water washes everything away," Norie said. It was one of her favorite proverbs, one that meant it was better to forgive and forget. "Speaking of water, are you going to bathe before breakfast? If you do that now, I'll prepare the okayu."

Over large bowls of the last of the restorative gruel, I searched for ways to get Norie to open up about the Kayamas, but it was impossible. She wanted to talk about my Uncle Hiroshi, who was at last returning from Osaka for a visit. I couldn't understand the stamina of tanshin funin: absentee husbands who accepted their company's orders to work far from home but didn't take their families with them. Norie had gotten caught up in a murder a week ago, and Hiroshi hadn't been available to offer her support. I supposed his homecoming was better late than never.

The Japanese press said my generation had a different attitude toward work, but I doubted it. As I rode the Hibiya subway line into Roppongi, I checked out a few good-looking young businessmen.

I had identified a Hibiya Line type, a species of tall young man with cheekbones like razors and slicked-back hair, usually dressed for business in a European suit. An English wing-tip shoe might bounce gently as he rested in his seat. It was a law of nature that HLTs never had to stand on trains. I watched a twenty-something guy who fit the profile sit down across from me, only to dash my fantasies by opening the latest edition of Jump. How could I ever get involved with a grown man who reads boys' comics?
Sorry
, I said in my thoughts to the HLT,
it's not going to work
.

Takeo Kayama lived within walking distance of the Hibiya Line, but I didn't think of him as an HLT. He had the height and bones, but his hair was long and floppy—all wrong. As was his dark wardrobe of jeans and T-shirts. Even the business suit he had worn on the day of Sakura's slaying had been wrinkled. Besides, HLTs had jobs. Takeo was a puppet in the Kayama administration, hanging around to collect cash from students and teachers. No, Takeo Kayama was not my type.

You're lying
, the voice inside me said. To still it, I stared all the harder at the good-looking guy reading Jump. He must have felt it, because he eventually looked up. He hissed a single word at me: "Hentai." It meant 'pervert.'

He felt sexually harassed! I shouldn't have giggled, but I did. I put my hand over my mouth and looked down at my knees until I reached Kamiyacho Station. Then I strode out of the subway car without a second glance at the poor abused businessman.

* * *

Ishida Antiques was located on the grounds of the family home where my seventy-five-year-old friend Yasushi Ishida had been born. Since World War II, the structure had been rebuilt every ten or twenty years, metamorphosing from a wooden house into a neat stucco box similar to the other shops around it. Mr. Ishida lived alone upstairs, having turned the ground floor into a crowded showplace for old furniture. The only item not for sale was a miniature shrine set above the door, decorated with miniature paper prayer strips and today's fruit offering to his departed parents, a fragrant peach. The fruit was changed daily, so the aroma was always fresh.

Today he had a customer, an elegant Japanese woman in her late fifties. Mother of a Hibiya Line Type, maybe. Mr. Ishida sent me a swift glance that said to look around quietly while he completed his sale.

Mr. Ishida's shop reflected the same cherry blossom fever as the rest of Japan's commercial world. He had decorated a lacquered stand with a mauve kimono patterned with pink cherry blossoms. On a tansu chest he had a cherry blossom arrangement in a large black suiban container. Surrounding it were similar ikebana containers of the same vintage. These weren't filled with water or flowers, so I turned one over to look for an artist's mark. Stamped into the ceramic were two simple kanji I recognized: those for "flower" and mountain. Together the words were pronounced 'ka-yama.'

I wondered if someone in the Kayama family made pottery but dismissed the idea. Most likely the dish was made to order for the school, just like the minimalist modem stoneware that currently filled the shelves of the Kayama classroom. What was surprising to me was how these ceramics reflected a 1930s art moderne feeling. The colors of the ceramics—happy shades of orange, pink, and green— reminded me of American Fiestaware. At the same time, one could argue that these were the same colors that decorated typical Japanese kimono.

As I tried to figure out whether the containers were more Japanese or American, things were proceeding well for Mr. Ishida. His lady customer was on the verge of buying a tansu priced at a cool seven hundred thousand yen, about $4,800. She stroked the smooth lacquered finish, and I wondered what it would be like to buy something in perfect condition that was practically guaranteed to rise in value. Nice, l imagined. Very nice.

After the business was concluded, the lady left to deep bows from Mr. Ishida. He was still horizontal when she slipped out the door, and he took his time coming up, rubbing at the small of his back.

"I missed my tai chi practice for only two days, and it has turned me into an old man," Mr. Ishida grumbled.

"Never." I smiled at my mentor and settled down at the tea table crowded with papers and books, the prime spot where Mr. Ishida liked to serve tea and gossip.

"What a good day this is, Shimura-san. That tansu has taken up space for the last eight months. I was worrying that it would never sell."