The Fifth Profession (11 page)

Shame and duty controlled the Japanese personality. Devotion to honor compelled them but often also wearied them. Peace could be elusive, fatigue of the spirit inescapable. Ritual suicide—
seppuku
—was on occasion the only solution.

Savage's research made him realize that these values applied only to uncorrupted, unwesternized Japanese, those who'd refused to adapt to the cultural infection of America's military occupation after the war. But Akira gave the impression of being both uncorruptible and, despite his knowledge of American ways, an unrelenting patriot of the Land of the Gods. Even so, the emotion in his eyes was more than the usual Japanese melancholy. His sadness was seared to the depths of his soul. So dark, so deep, so black, so profound. An expanding wall of repressive ebony. Savage felt it. The Plymouth was filled with it.

8

At eleven, a country road wound through night-shrouded mountains, leading them to a town called Medford Gap. Kamichi and Akira again exhanged comments in Japanese. Akira leaned forward. “At the town's main intersection, please turn left.”

Savage obeyed. Driving from the lights of Medford Gap, he steered up a narrow, winding road and hoped he wouldn't meet another vehicle coming down. There were very few places to park on the shoulder, and the spring thaw had made them muddy.

Dense trees flanked the car. The road angled higher, veering sharply back and forth. The Plymouth's headlights glinted off banks of lingering snow. Ten minutes later, the road became level, its sharp turns now gentle curves. Ahead, above hulking trees, Savage saw a glow. He passed through an open gate, steered around a clump of boulders, and entered an enormous clearing. Fallow gardens flanked him. Spotlights gleamed, revealing paths, benches, and hedges. But what attracted Savage's attention was the eerie building that loomed before him.

At first, he thought it was
several
buildings, some made of brick, others of stone, others of wood. They varied in height: five stories, three, four. Each had a different style: a town house, a pagoda, a castle, a chalet. Some had straight walls; others were rounded. Chimneys, turrets, gables, and balconies added to the weird architectural confusion.

But as Savage drove closer, he realized that all of these apparently separate designs were joined to form one enormous baffling structure. My God, he thought. How long must it be? A fifth of a mile? It was
huge.

None of the sections had doors, except for one in the middle, where the road led to wide wooden steps and a porch upon which a man in a uniform waited. The uniform, with epaulets and gold braids, reminded Savage of the type that bellmen wore at luxury hotels. Abruptly he saw a sign on the porch—MEDFORD GAP MOUNTAIN RETREAT—and understood that this peculiar building was in fact a hotel.

As Savage stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the man in the uniform came down toward the car.

Savage's muscles hardened.

Why the hell weren't my instructions complete? I should have been told where we'd be staying. This place … on a mountaintop,
totally isolated,
with just Akira and me to protect Kamichi, no explanation of why we came here, no way to control who comes and goes in a building this huge … it's a security nightmare.

Recalling the mysterious exchange of briefcases, Savage turned to Kamichi to tell him that
ura,
private thoughts, might be wonderful in Japan, but here they gave a protector a royal pain and what the hell was going on?

Akira intervened. “My master appreciates your concern. He grants that your sense of obligation gives you cause to object to these apparently risky arrangements. But you should understand that except for a few other guests, the hotel will be empty. And
those
guests, too, have escorts. The road will be watched. No incident is expected.”

“I'm not the primary escort,” Savage said.
“You
are. With respect, though,
yes,
I'm disturbed. Do
you
agree with these arrangements?”

Akira bowed his head, darting his profoundly sad eyes toward Kamichi. “I do what my master wills.”

“As must I. But for the record, I don't like it.”

“Your objection is noted. My master absolves you from responsibility.”

“You know better. As long as I've pledged myself, I'm
never
absolved.”

Akira bowed again. “Of course. I've studied your credentials. With approval. That's why I agreed when my master decided to hire you.”

“Then you know this conversation's pointless. I'll do what's necessary,” Savage said. “Totally. But I will not work with you and your master again.”

“Once is all that's required.”

“Then let's get on with it.”

Outside the car, the man in uniform waited. Savage pressed buttons that released the doors and the trunk. He stepped from the car and told the man to carry the bags inside. Nerves tingling, he glanced around at the looming darkness, then preceded Kamichi and Akira up the steps.

9

The lobby looked like a vestige from the 1890s. Antique pine lined the walls. Wagon wheels were chandeliers. A single primitive elevator stood next to an impressive old staircase that crisscrossed upward. But for all its historical charm, the place smelled moldy and stank of decay. A hotel for ghosts.

Savage kept his back to Kamichi, watching the deserted lobby, Akira doing the same, while their principal murmured to an elderly spiderweb-haired woman behind a counter.

“We won't use the elevator,” Akira said.

“I advise my principals to avoid them whenever possible.”

“In this instance, it's just that my master prefers the incomparable staircase.”

As if Kamichi had been here before.

Third floor. And with every upward movement, Savage heard the attendant struggle with the bags. Too bad, Savage thought. The elevator would have been easier for you. But an elevator's a trap, and anyway I've got the feeling other rules apply here.

The man in the uniform stopped at a door.

“Thank you. Leave the bags out here,” Savage said.

“If that is your preference, sir.”

“Your tip—”

“Has been arranged, sir.”

The man handed three keys
not
to Savage or Akira but Kamichi. Savage watched as the man disappeared down the stairs. Did the man have security training? He knew not to compromise the hands of the escorts.

Kamichi unlocked the door and stepped back, allowing Akira to inspect the room.

When Akira returned, he nodded to Kamichi, faced Savage, and raised his eyebrows. “Would you care to … ?”

“Yes.”

By the standards of hotels that catered to the wealthy, by
any
standard, the room was primitive. An unpainted radiator. A dim light bulb in the ceiling. The single window had simple draperies. The floor was bare worn pine. The bed was narrow, concave, covered with a very old, homemade quilt. The bathroom had a hand-held shower attachment on a clip above dingy faucets. The moldy smell persisted. No television, though there
was
a telephone, old-fashioned, black and bulky, with a dial instead of buttons.

Savage opened the only closet. Shallow, it exuded must. He stepped toward another door, this one beside the window and the radiator. Peering out, he saw a small balcony. Spotlights at the rear of the building reflected off an oval lake directly below. Cliffs rimmed it to the right. A dock projected from the left. Beyond the water, a shadowy trail led up to pine trees, then a murky bluff. Savage's scalp shrank.

He left the room.

“Do my master's quarters meet with your approval?” Akira asked.

“If he likes to feel he's at summer camp.”

“Summer camp?”

“A joke.”

“Yes. So.” Akira forced a smile.

“What I meant was, the room's not exactly luxurious. Most of my clients would refuse it.”

“My master prefers simplicity.”

“By all means, Kamichi-san's desires are paramount.” Savage bowed toward his employer. “What troubles me is the balcony—and the
other
balconies. It's too easy for someone to move from one to another and enter the room.”

“The balconies on either side belong to
our
rooms, and as I explained, the hotel has few other guests,” Akira said.

“They and their escorts are trustworthy. The principals are associates of my master. No incident is anticipated.”

“I'm also troubled by the trees on the opposite side of the lake. I can't see into them, but at night, with the hotel lit, someone would have an excellent view of Kamichi-san at a window.”

“Someone with a rifle?” Akira shook his head.

“It's the way I'm trained to think.”

“My master approves of caution, but he has no reason to fear for his life. Extreme security won't be necessary.”

“But—”

“My master will now have his bath.”

The ritual of bathing was one of the greatest Japanese pleasures, Savage knew. But bathing meant more to them than just cleansing themselves. First Kamichi would fill the tub and scrub his body. Then he would drain the tub, swab it, refill it, and soak, perhaps repeating the process several times.

“Whatever he wishes,” Savage said, “though he won't find the water as hot as he's used to in Japan.” He referred to the fact that the Japanese preferred a temperature most Westerners found painful.

Akira shrugged. “One must always allow for the inconvenience of travel. And
you
must learn to enjoy the solemnity of these peaceful surroundings. While my master bathes, I'll order his meal. When he's ready for bed, I'll return and permit you to rest.”

Kamichi picked up his bags, thus allowing Akira to keep his hands free. With a bow to Savage, Akira followed his master into the room and shut the door.

Savage stood watch. Alone, he became more sensitive to the stillness in the hotel. He glanced at his and Akira's suitcases. He turned his gaze toward the silent doors along the corridor, noting photographs on the walls: old, faded images of the cliff-rimmed lake before the hotel had been constructed, of bearded men and bonneted woman in buggies from another century, of long-dead families picnicking beside the lake.

Again he felt troubled. Pivoting left, he studied the top of the majestic staircase. Farther to the left, the lonely corridor went on for at least a hundred yards. Swinging to the right, he assessed the other section of the corridor. But there the hallway reached an alcove filled with antique rocking chairs, then jutted away.

Savage cautiously approached the interruption of his vantage point. At the alcove, he saw that the hallway formed a sharp angle toward the hotel's entrance, then formed
another
sharp angle that continued for a hundred yards along the continuation of the hotel's length. And
this
part of the hall felt even more lonely, not just due to a smothering accumulation of the past but because of an unnerving sense of having been trapped in a time warp, another dimension. Unreal.

Savage's shoulders felt cold.

10

Two hours later, he lay on a sagging mattress in his room, reading a pamphlet he'd found on his bedside table.

The Medford Gap Mountain Retreat, he discovered, had a fascinating history that helped explain the unreality of the place. In 1870, a Mennonite couple who owned a farm in the nearby lowlands had hiked up Medford Mountain, amazed to discover that its peak had a hollow at its tip with an oval lake fed by a spring. The place seemed touched by God.

They built a cabin where the hotel's lobby now stood and invited other Mennonite families to worship this splendor of heaven on earth. Eventually, so many worshipers accepted their request that the cabin required additions, and when outsiders heard of this retreat, the community decided to build another addition and then another to accommodate world-weary visitors who needed a respite and would perhaps find solace in the Mennonite faith.

In 1910, an unexplained fire destroyed the original cabin and its additions. By then, the couple who'd discovered the lake had gone to their reward. Their daughters and sons, committed to the ministry of their parents, had at once begun to rebuild the retreat. But farmers by training, they realized that they needed help. They advertised for a manager and hired a New York architect, who'd abandoned his profession because he couldn't bear the pressures of the city. The architect converted to the Mennonite faith and committed himself to the mountain.

But his big-city intuition told him that the retreat had to be so distinctive, so one-of-a-kind that it would compel the unconverted to leave the soot and desperation of their lives, to journey into Pennsylvania's majestic wilderness, to pay to proceed to the top of a mountain and appreciate a lake that reflected God's grandeur.

He gave each addition a separate design, and as the enterprise prospered, the building lengthened to almost two hundred and fifty yards. Visitors came from as far away as San Francisco, many requesting the same room each year. Only in 1962 had the descendants of the hotel's founders grudgingly permitted a telephone in each room. Otherwise, in keeping with strict Mennonite custom, radios and televisions were still forbidden. God's artistry in nature ought to provide sufficient entertainment. Dancing and card playing were also forbidden, as of course were alcohol and tobacco.

11

The latter restriction had inexplicably been waived on this occasion, for the following morning when Savage escorted Kamichi to the hotel's main floor, three men waited in an enormous parlor, and two of them were smoking.

The parlor had huge wooden columns that supported massive beams. Windows filled the walls to the left, right, and center, revealing porches, the lake, and wooded bluffs. Sunlight gleamed in. Logs blazed in a spacious fireplace, dispelling the morning's chill. A grand piano stood in one corner. Rocking chairs were arranged around the room. But what Savage paid most attention to was a long conference table in the middle, where the three men stood as Kamichi approached them.

Like Kamichi, the men were in their fifties. They wore expensive suits and had the calculating eyes of upper-echelon businessmen or diplomats. One was American, the others Spanish and Italian. They were either ignorant of Japanese customs or else determined to insist on Western ways, for they shook hands with Kamichi instead of bowing. After a few pleasantries, the group sat, two on each side of the table. Their forced smiles dissolved. They began a sober discussion.