The Hell Screen - [Sugawara Akitada 02] Page 29

  “Yes? Who’s there?” came a soft voice from the back.

  “Tora. Can I come in?”

  “Tora?” The voice was filled with sudden pleasure. “Yes. I’ll be right there.”

  Tora grinned and took off his boots. After a moment, a middle-aged woman, very small like her house, and dressed in a plain blue cotton robe, came hurrying down the dim corridor. She moved with the peculiar half-sliding, half-swaying gait of the trained woman of pleasure and had, in fact, once been a famous courtesan. She was still beautiful in all but her face, which was severely disfigured by smallpox.

  “It is you, Tora, my fierce animal!” she cried. “At last, after all this time. It’s been six years almost, hasn’t it? Come in, come in. Let me look at you.”

  Tora stepped up onto the wooden floor of the hallway. It was highly polished and, like everything else in the small house, very plain and very clean. He looked down at her from his height. “You look well, little flower,” he said, and bowed. “It gives me great pleasure to find you as charming as ever.”

  She laughed at his formality, brushing at her hair, which she wore gathered into a heavy bun. It was still glossy and the sound of her laughter was pleasant, like that of very small smooth pebbles being poured into a ceramic bowl. It rippled melodiously, and used to make men feel quite weak with pleasure. “You’re such a handsome liar,” she said, reaching up and pulling Tora’s nose. “I have some decent wine. Shall we share a cup while you tell me your adventures and help a poor lonely old woman pass an afternoon?”

  “Never an old woman, but”—he looked at her anxiously— “have you been lonely, Mitsuko?”

  She patted his arm. “No more than usual. Since you have rid me of that horrible man, I can go anywhere and my friends can visit me again.”

  The “horrible man” was a hunchbacked fishmonger who had attempted to force Mitsuko to become his personal property by paying a debt for her and then claiming that she had sold herself to him. Like many women of her class, Mitsuko was unable to read the documents she signed with her mark. Tora had made certain that the fishmonger not only relinquished the documents, but never approached her again.

  “I was hoping the bastard had died.” Tora seated himself in a tiny reception room hardly large enough to hold two people. Mitsuko produced the wine and cups with the conscious grace of the professional companion and served him with slender, beautiful hands. “Welcome home, my tiger,” she said with a smile.

  Tora raised his cup to her and drank. The wine was good, but he drank sparingly, knowing she had little money. Putting his cup down, he asked, “Did a young woman come here last night, asking for me?”

  Mitsuko raised her brows. “You have made new friends before visiting your old ones?”

  “I’m sorry, Mitsuko. I met her on an assignment for my master. I haven’t had time off until today.”

  “Ah. I forgive you. No. Nobody came. Perhaps you are not as irresistible as you think?”

  Tora was disappointed. “I guess not, though I would’ve bet she liked me. Maybe you know her? She’s an actress. Her professional name’s Gold. She and her twin Silver work for a guy called Uemon.”

  Mitsuko thought. “No. I’ve seen Uemon’s shows. They’re very good. Is she pretty?”

  “Pretty, yes. Not beautiful like you.”

  She smiled a little sadly. “You are always kind, Tora. Sometimes I need to hear that. After the smallpox, people stopped looking at me. Just the one glance, you know, and then they turn their eyes elsewhere as they talk to me.”

  Tora looked at her. “Not all of them. I like looking at you. Your eyes are as large and handsome as ever and you still smile like a goddess. It’s just the skin that’s a bit marred. Nothing to get upset about. I’ve seen much worse, and not so long ago.”

  She laughed bitterly and reached up to touch a pitted, discolored cheek. “Not worse. None of the other women lost their looks like I have.”

  “You had more to lose. Most people die from smallpox.”

  “I usually wish I had.”

  Tora never knew how to respond when she said things like that. “The girl I saw looked really horrible. Some man carved her a new face. Took off the nose and part of her upper lip. Then he cut a couple of extra mouths on her face.”

  Mitsuko’s eyes widened. “So she’s still alive. We thought she drowned herself. She worked here in the quarter for a while. Seemed a better-class girl, but couldn’t find good customers.” Mitsuko earned a very meager income arranging appointments between men and certain women of the quarter. Some of her own former clients had taken pity on her and sent a little business her way. “She was very pretty and promising, I heard, and I was going to talk to her when she disappeared.”

  “What happened?”

  “Some of the common people blame it on demons, but it must have been a client. Lately there have been rumors of someone ... strange.” She sighed, looking down at her hands.

  “You mean one of her customers did that to her?”

  “Sometimes men can only enjoy the rain and clouds if they hurt the woman.”

  Tora was appalled. “That’s disgusting! Why would a girl let a man do such things to her?”

  “I don’t suppose she expected it.”

  “The bastard’s got to be stopped before he does it again. Did she tell anyone who he was?”

  “I don’t think so. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I wish someone could find out. The girls are worried.”

  “Hmm.” Tora stared at her. He had often regretted that his master seemed to do most of the investigating himself—as if he did not trust Tora to have enough sense for the trickier bits. The recent reprimand still rankled. What if he could solve a case all by himself? Perhaps this slasher was his chance to prove himself. “Suppose I caught the bastard?” he asked Mitsuko.

  She looked at him with a smile. “You might. Nobody else seems to bother. The police have better things to do than protect poor women.”

  “Well, then, wish me luck!” He hurriedly finished his wine and rose.

  “But you just got here.”

  “And I’ll be back, sweetheart.” Mitsuko shook her head and looked at him quizzically. He was not sure whether she was hurt or amused by his short visit, but he put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze before heading out the door.

  In his new role as hunter of criminals, Tora was no longer hampered by the fact that Gold might not want him to pursue her too openly. A madman who preyed on the women of the pleasure quarter was loose. What if she had run into that animal on the way to meet him? Tora asked the way to the Golden Phoenix.

  It was near the river and Miss Plumblossom’s training hall, a backstreet business offering cheap accommodations to poor travelers and those who needed a place to sleep for a few weeks. When Tora ducked under the torn and faded curtain separating the inn’s interior from the narrow street outside, he found himself face-to-face with two small boys. They sat on the wooden platform, their feet dangling, engaged in a game of dice.

  The smaller of the two snapped, “Yes? What do you want?” in an irascible tone and a gravelly voice which seemed to have broken prematurely.

  Tora peered at him, adjusting his eyes to the dimness after the outdoors. The little one could not be more than five or six. He had tiny hands and feet. But that voice! “Your mother needs to teach you manners, boy,” he growled. “Where is she? Who’s in charge here?” He looked at the older boy, who merely grinned foolishly. Probably an idiot, Tora thought. What were these children doing, gambling for money? The pile of coppers in front of the little one was impressive.

  The small boy hopped up. He used his arms to do this, much like a little monkey. When he was standing, his head seemed too large for his compact short body. Tora thought him the ugliest child he had ever seen. Ratlike eyes peered over a bulbous nose, and large protruding ears looked like handles stuck onto a melon; besides, he was glowering up at Tora with a thoroughly malevolent expression. “Look who’s talking about manners!
” he croaked. “What mangy cat dragged you in by that moth-eaten mustache?”

  The insult to Tora’s trim and dapper facial ornament was too much. He took a large step forward. “Let me save your parents the trouble and blister your sorry behind, you little lout!” He seized the boy by the scruff of his jacket, intending to put him over his knee, but a closer look stopped him. The “child” had gray hair and the wrinkled face of an elderly man. Shocked, Tora let him drop back on the platform.

  “Ouch!” The little old man fell on his behind, then bounced up and retaliated with a well-placed kick to Tora’s groin.

  Tora doubled over. “Why, you little bastard,” he said when he came up for breath.

  The dwarf hopped around like an excited bird and laughed with an unpleasant cackle. “I have other tricks, if you want to try me, big bastard,” he crowed.

  Tora saw the humor in the situation and chuckled. “Sorry, uncle,” he said. “It was dark after the street outside. I meant no harm.”

  The ugly little man narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “I’m the manager. What do you want?”

  “One of Uemon’s girls. The one called Gold. I was told she stayed here.”

  The dwarf and the grinning boy looked at each other. When the small man turned to Tora, his expression was grim. “Gone!” he said.

  “Gone? All of them? So suddenly? Where?”

  “How should I know? The handsome one paid and they all walked out. I don’t ask people for their travel plans.”

  Tora looked from one to the other. There was a certain wariness in their eyes, as if they were waiting to see how he would take this information. He sighed and pulled out his meager string of coppers, weighing it in his hand. “How much?” he asked the dwarf.

  The beady eyes guessed at the number of coins in Tora’s hand. “Twenty,” the dwarf ventured.

  It was all Tora had for his midday meal. He counted out twenty coppers and stacked them on the platform. “I need to know when they left, where they went, and if the girl was with them,” he said without removing his hand from the stack.

  The dwarf’s eyes lit up. “Sometime yesterday, don’t know, and yes.”

  Tora did not take his hand off the money. “What about your young friend there? Does he know anything?”

  The boy was still grinning. Shaking his head violently, he made a snorting sound which might have been suppressed laughter or an idiot’s speech defect. After a moment, Tora released the money. The dwarf scooped it up so quickly that his fingers touched Tora’s hand as it withdrew.

  Well, at least the girl was fine. Tora nodded to the gamblers and stepped back out into the street. It was well past noon, and his stomach grumbled. He looked unhappily about him. His master would want him to find the actors. Maybe they left for an engagement in the country, but with the end of the year approaching they had to be rehearsing. Probably they had just changed accommodations. Tora did not relish the thought of trudging up and down streets to check every inn or rooming house. He decided to stop by Miss Plumblossom’s. Surely she would know what their plans were. Besides, he needed to talk to that maid if he was going to find the slasher.

  As he walked, he thought of a third reason. His hungry imagination conjured up the memory of Miss Plumblossom eating. A woman with such an appetite might offer a leftover morsel to a starving man.

  Miss Plumblossom was indeed just finishing her meal. Seated on her thronelike chair, she eyed the tray held by the scarred maid regretfully and dabbed her lips. “Take the rest away, my dear. That was quite delicious, but Mr. Oishi is waiting for his wrestling lesson and too much food makes me sluggish.”

  The doorkeeper being absent, Tora had slipped in unnoticed. Mr. Oishi, a very large, blubbery figure already stripped to his loincloth, was waiting anxiously for his lesson, and the maid walked away with the tray.

  Seeing his meal disappearing, Tora shouted, “Wait!” Six astonished eyes turned toward him. Then disaster struck. The maid shrieked and dropped the food. Tora cursed, rushed up, and was met by Miss Plumblossom’s heel placed squarely and violently in his groin, which was still sore from the kick by the dwarf. Miss Plumblossom packed quite a different force from the tiny old man. Tora shrieked and fell backward, writhing with pain. Almost instantly a crushing weight landed on his body, choking off his second scream. He mercifully lost consciousness.

  * * * *

  Akitada was in Kobe’s office reporting Nagaoka’s disappearance when a sergeant walked in to announce that the “slasher” had been captured.

  Kobe rose excitedly. “Well, I hope it’s good news this time!” he cried. “We’ve tried to catch that monster for months now.”

  Akitada was not pleased by the interruption but asked politely, “A dangerous criminal?”

  “So far he’s only preyed on prostitutes and loose women in the quarter of the untouchables, but you never know. Six dead that we know of.” He turned to the sergeant, who stood waiting. “How did you catch him? In the act, I hope?”

  The sergeant looked embarrassed. “Er, sort of,” he mumbled. “Actually...”

  “What? Speak up, man! It could mean special recognition for one of our guys.”

  “Er,” stammered the sergeant, “it wasn’t one of our men that caught him, sir. It was a female.”

  Kobe stared. “A female? You mean one of the whores fought back? Good for her!”

  “Not really, sir. It was Miss Plumblossom.”

  “The idiot attacked Miss Plumblossom?”

  Akitada chuckled. Kobe looked at him suspiciously. “You know her?”

  “Only from what my men told me. If it is the same woman, she is a character, a former acrobat who runs a training hall.”

  Kobe nodded glumly. “The same. Not the easiest person in the world to deal with. She’s forever complaining about us. Well, I suppose I had better face the dragon. Do you want to come?”

  Akitada hesitated. “Can we discuss the Nagaoka case on the way?”

  “Nothing to discuss, but if you must.”

  Akitada bit his lip. “In that case, I will come. If Kojiro does not know where his brother has gone, there may be trouble.”

  “The man’s not accountable to his brother. Besides, I warned him away.”

  They walked out of the administrative hall of the prison and crossed the courtyard, where a contingent of constables was practicing with weighted steel chains and jitte, iron prongs designed to deflect swords.

  “Nagaoka has been gone too long,” Akitada urged. “And he carried money.”

  Kobe considered it. “I suppose Nagaoka could be behind the murder. If so, he has by now disappeared into the mountains.”

  “Will you let me help you find him?”

  Kobe stopped and looked at Akitada. “Where would you go? What do you know?”

  “Nothing I have not told you. But there are obvious places to ask questions. The servant said he was dressed for a journey. Boots, quilted robe, a bag, and possibly a short sword.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  They resumed their rapid pace and were approaching the eastern market. In spite of the cold weather, crowds of shoppers were coming and going, casting curious or nervous glances at the red-coated police constables who were preceding the two officials.

  “A sword, eh?” Kobe pondered. “He didn’t strike me as the type.”

  “If he carried all the money he got from selling his possessions, he would take a weapon. The roads are not safe.”

  “No. But where would you look?”

  “His brother’s farm is an hour’s ride from the capital. So is the home of his late wife.”

  “Hmm. I don’t see the point of going there.” Kobe turned to his sergeant to discuss the case of the slasher and ignored Akitada until they arrived at Miss Plumblossom’s establishment.

  Inside, Akitada looked around curiously. The place reminded him of another training hall, in faraway Kazusa province, though this one was far larger and better equipped. Bu
t the memory brought sadness and he put it from his mind. The proprietress awaited them seated in a chair on the dais at the end of the hall, in the company of a very fat young man and a young woman who hid behind a fan.

  Since chairs were by no means common—in fact, not even the emperor used such a piece of furniture—Akitada stared in surprise. If it had not been for the elaborate coils of shiny black hair trimmed with red ribbons and the chalk-white face with heavy “moth” eyebrows painted somewhere high above the kohl-rimmed eyes, he would have taken Miss Plumblossom for a fat abbot of a Buddhist monastery.