The Japanese Corpse (25 page)

"Boss," de Gier said, putting his arm around her shoulders, and lighting the cigarette she had taken from his pack, "and if you are nasty to me and kill me, somebody else will come out. We are a small organization, but Holland is full of merchants. Others have seen the traffic in stolen art and drugs and have calculated the profits. And the yakusa office in Amsterdam is closed now, I hear. It will be some time before you can work your way in again. Any Japanese asking for a resident's permit will be suspect right away. It will take a lot of effort to start all over again."

"Good," she said, "so you will be coming out here all the time, and I can see you. I don't care about the yakusa losing a little business. I am only a girl in the bar. I won't lose my job. They need me; I speak English. I took an interpreter's course; they are paying me good money. In another year I will be free and can set up my own bar. They are paying me one third of my salary in cash, another third goes into a savings account which I can't touch until my contract is up."

"And the other third?"

"My mother gets it. My father is dead. The yakusa wrote the contract with my mother."

"She sold you?"

She laughed and got up, busying herself with the coffee percolator. "We don't call it selling here. Daughters are often hired out on contracts. The big factories write similar contracts. They get all their girls that way, and after some years the girls have money and they can marry. They learn all sorts of things while they are working for the factory. There are classes in the evening and during the weekends. Flower arrangement and tea ceremony and how to cook and sew and keep house and how to bring up babies. The yakusa aren't much different from the factories and the business companies. I go to classes too. I like to arrange flowers."

De Gier looked at the tokonoma in the corner of the room. A wild flower, soft orange with a reddish brown heart, was set at a slight angle, balanced, both in line-play and color, against two dead twigs. The scroll hanging behind the vase showed the top of a mountain done with a few dabs of black ink.

"Beautiful. The mountain is Fuji-san right?"

"Right. It's a copy. The original is in a temple run by the state, the temple you bought your little wooden statue from. It was stolen by a guardian who used to sell to us. Kono-san sent one of his men to see him and the poor fellow is sick now—he broke his nose and lost a few teeth—but there will be others who will sell to you."

"Kono-san is too rough," de Gier said. "Can't he think of something more interesting. Like the play I saw in the little theater?"

"The daimyo thought of the play. He also thought of the mask which your boss saw in a temple garden. He happened to be here in Kyoto when you arrived and took great pleasure in arranging the tricks. The so-called student who took you to the theatre works in our bar. He hid when you came in. He thought you might shoot him with your automatic."

She patted his jacket. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Almost," de Gier said, and sipped his coffee, "but not with a weapon. I nearly killed a man with my hands, twisted his neck. It had nothing to do with the business."

"A fight?"

"No. He didn't see me coming."

"Why did you attack him?"

"I didn't like him," de Gier said. "He was throwing stones at a cat. The cat had broken its spine and was trying to crawl away and he was standing over it. He had another stone and he was going to throw it at the cat's neck."

"So you nearly broke
his
neck," she said softly. "I see. Strange you didn't kill Kono. He wanted to hurt your chief."

"My chief took care of him," de Gier said. "And I have to go now. Thank you for the meal. We go sailing tomorrow? Shall I pick you up? I have my own car now, a nice little sports car with an open top, I hired it."

"Yes," she said, "but the top has to be closed when I drive with you."

"You don't want to be seen being driven around by a foreigner?"

"I am yakusa. Yakusa are always very secretive."

He lifted her to her feet and kissed her. There were heavy shadows under her eyes and her shoulders sagged. She wasn't trying to be sexy anymore, her hands were clasped around his neck as she rested her face against his chest.

"Take care," she said. 'The daimyo has given no specific orders about you. He knows you are seeing me and it must be all right, for he hasn't sent me a message. Kono won't do anything either. He is in Kobe building a fence near the bird barn, or, rather, he is sitting around while others build the fence, for his hand still hurts him. But there may be some of us who think that they should save his face."

"I'll see what I can do for you," de Gier said, sliding the front door open. She watched him get into his car, standing in the shadow, so that he couldn't see the puzzled expression on her face as he waved goodbye. As the car turned the corner she picked up the telephone.

\\\\\ 22 /////

"B
AH," THE COMMISSARIS SAID, AND PULLED HIS MATtress out of the cupboard. "I am going to take a nap. I think I have done all I should have done, but it is too complicated for an old man. I can't keep this up much longer; too many things to keep in mind. Let me see now. I phoned Mr. Johnson from the bathhouse up the street. The bathhouse phone won't be tapped. Maybe the phone here isn't tapped either, but I couldn't take the chance. Mr. Johnson doesn't speak Dutch and some Japanese speak English. The CIA is going to do everything we want them to do. They are flying out a Dutchman to Hong Kong. He'll be our agent. Mr. Woo gave me the telephone number of his agent and a time. It was on that slip of paper which also gave the amount we are supposed to pay for the heroin. According to Mr. Johnson, the price is right. So our agent phones Woo's agent and the two can meet on the day next week that Woo is meeting us here. The two yakusa in Amsterdam will stay in jail for the time being. I don't know how Johnson is going to arrange it. Our public prosecutor won't like it at all. Maybe they are working it through our Ministry of Justice. Some justice, but that's got nothing to do with us. And the CIA will supply us with the money to give to Mr. Woo. I can pick it up tomorrow at some bank here; I've got the address. It'll be a nice tidy sum to carry around. The yakusa should be shadowing us. Well, we'll just take that risk. They haven't stopped us yet so maybe we'll get through again. I can stuff the money in my pockets and ask for big bills. I don't want to carry a briefcase or anything. In fact, I don't want to
do
anything either. I never have. But I am the tool of circumstances, a bit of flotsam in a choppy sea.
That's
what I am. A sleepy bit of flotsam." He was patting the little cushion lovingly. "A little nap, that'll be nice. And what have
you
done today, sergeant?"

De Gier had sat down and was rolling a cigarette. The package of Dutch shag tobacco looked out of place, but de Gier's dextrous movements and the way he licked the cigarette paper offset the impression.

"Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. I am going sailing tomorrow with the yakusa girl. Yuiko-san has a few days off, she is still recuperating from the operation. We'll rent a boat."

"The girl fell for you, eh?"

"No, sir," de Gier said, and rested his head against a post in the wall. "Her loyalty is with her employers. Maybe she likes me. She held my hand when she was in the hospital and I came to visit her. She was drugged then. But she'll have me killed if that's what the daimyo wants. I am sure she wouldn't hesitate at all. I think they'll have another try tomorrow, when I am on the lake.

"We just had a meal together, Yuiko-san and I, and we talked. She told me that the daimyo thought of the tricks with your mask and my death on the stage. She says he likes doing that sort of thing. The roughhouse stuff is planned by Kono, the bully who tried to make you do the knife trick. I have a feeling the daimyo will take his turn tomorrow. They must know that Woo Shan has visited us, and if we can get the heroin trade away from them too, it should be too much to accept."

The commissaris rolled over on his mattress and looked at the ceiling. A scraping rustling sound was penetrating through the slabs and beams.

"Funny," the commissaris said. "That sounds like sweeping, doesn't it? But this isn't the time for cleaning rooms; the maids do it earlier in the day. The daimyo, you said, that's their top banana. Yes, maybe you are right. Lake Biwa would be an ideal playground for him, and you'll be in a sailboat, all on your own with a few miles of water to separate you from the shore and eventual help. But we can have another boat hovering around. Dorin will be delighted, I am sure. We could also arrange for a plane to keep an eye on you. But maybe there is no reason to worry. We are prepared now and half the danger of the daimyo's charades lies in the victim being unaware. Although..."

De Gier was looking at the ceiling too. The sound continued; there was a steady rhythm to it.

"If that is sweeping, there must be a lot to sweep," de Gier said, "and the floors here are always very clean. We walk about barefoot or in our socks. I have seen the maids clean, but all they catch is a bit of ash and minute particles of dirt, and the straws of their own broom. I think their cleaning is more like a ritual."

"Yes. Strange. The daimyo, he is clever. I wonder how well he has penetrated into our minds. If he has been observing us he may know what to do. Perhaps we shouldn't underestimate our own weakness. I should know by now; I was drooling at the mouth when he caught me in the temple garden."

There was a knock on the door and Dorin came in, carrying two large paper bags and a broom.

"Was that
you
sweeping?" de Gier asked.

"Yes."

"But your room is next door to ours, isn't it?"

"They moved me out of it this morning. I prefer the room upstairs. I can look over the wall now, into the temple compound across the road, and the priests are having a big ceremony tomorrow which I want to see. They all come in their best robes and do a sort of dance. They do it once a month. Yes, that was me sweeping. I was sweeping up dead flies. They are in these bags now."

He opened one of the bags and showed its contents to the commissaris, then to de Gier. The bag was full to the brim. The flies were fairly large. They had striped bodies, green wings and bulging eyes. And they were all dead.

"When Dutchmen go to the Far East, flies follow," the commissaris said slowly.

Dorin sat down and lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking a little and his eyes looked tired; the finely drawn eyebrows sagged and there were deep wrinkles on his forehead.

"If each fly is a hint you got a lot of hints," de Gier said. "There must be somebody here in the inn who keeps the yakusa informed about us. You only moved into the room this morning, didn't you?"

"Yes, and I was out for an hour only. They must have been waiting for me. I wonder where they got the flies. I can't stand flies, but most Japanese hate them. We are a proverbially clean people, and flies have to do with dirt and rotting food and corpses and disease."

"And Dutchmen," de Gier mumbled, and walked over to the other bag, which Dorin had left near the door and looked into it. "Where did I see a lot of flies once?" he asked aloud, staring at the bag. "At a farm I think it was, in Holland somewhere. We were investigating somebody's death, a long time ago. That's right. I went into the barn and opened a door leading into a partitioning, and there were a million dead flies. The farmer said that they had all come out of their eggs at the same time, but they were in a closed part of the barn. He had built the partitioning during the winter. When the flies hatched they couldn't find any food and died of starvation. Everything in the room was covered with their bodies. Maybe these came from a barn too. A barn. I had something to do with a barn. But what was it?"

"A barn?" the commissaris asked. "Have you been in any barns since we arrived in Japan? I haven't been near a farm as far as I know."

"Bird barn!" de Gier exclaimed. "Yuiko-san was telling me about Kono. Kono has a birdbarn. He sleeps in it when the peacock eggs are incubating. The bird barn is on the grounds of the daimyo's castle."

"Well," the commissaris said brightly. "The dead flies didn't upset you, did they, Dorin?"

"They did," Dorin said. "I vomited twice; I just made it to the bathroom each time. I knew I had something coming, but I find it very difficult to defend myself against this sort of thing."

"So why did you sweep them up? The maids could have done it for you."

"A little revenge," Dorin said. "The sergeant asked me this morning if I believe in revenge. I do. Maybe it doesn't accomplish much and only provokes action from the other side and sets off an endless chain of suffering, but it will relieve my feelings. I am going to sprinkle these flies all over the bar in the yakusa nightclub, tonight some time."

"Right now," de Gier said, "there may be nobody around. It's still early in the afternoon. I'll help you If you like."

"You are too conspicuous," Dorin said. "Thanks anyway. And you are right about the time. I'll go as a plumber. It's a disguise I have used before, and I have some affinity with the trade. My uncle is a plumber and I used to go with him on jobs when I was a kid. I have the right clothes with me, and one of my bags is a plumber's toolbox. I'll find a few pipes which I can keep under my arm."

"Yes," the commissaris said. "You can go through the back door. Can you pick locks?"

Dorin nodded.

"There's something else," de Gier said. "I am going sailing with a yakusa girl tomorrow, on Lake Biwa. The commissaris thinks you might be around too, in another boat or a plane."

"A boat," Dorin said. "I can get one easily. We'll discuss the details after I come back, and if I don't come back you can phone the emergency number you have. You should phone it anyway if I don't come back. They'll know what to do. But perhaps you shouldn't go sailing tomorrow. I telephoned my superiors in Tokyo this morning, and they think we know enough. They are prepared to give the word to have both the nightclub here and the daimyo's castle raided. We don't really need a well-prepared case. I am not a policeman and my superiors aren't either. They have enough power to wipe out the daimyo and his tribe. They didn't have it before, because the daimyo has friends in Tokyo too, government rats, rats with sticky paws, but their paws are drying up. The daimyo is losing his strength. The heroin connection to Europe was important to him, and it's gone now. The art business is only a sideline, but now that we have proof we could approach a few reporters and get the magazines to do illustrated stories. JAPANESE HOLY TREASURES GOING WEST. The government rats don't want to be associated with a juicy scandal and the magazines could make it very juicy. Unfortunately, we still don't know the identity of the daimyo."