The Moving Blade

Chapter 4

Chapter 4Hiroshi almost turned back from the narrow lanes of Golden Gai, but several young detectives guarding the police vans on the main street pointed the way to where Sakaguchi waited. He walked obediently into the maze of arms-width walkways, turning sideways to let the crime scene crew get past him. Bright police lights illuminated the dead-end, throwing sharp shadows through the back alleys and side lanes.

Hiroshi found Sakaguchi balanced over the bisected, blood-oozing body in the small cul-de-sac. His sumo bulk was awkward against the delicate white crime scene booties stretched over his big shoes. Hiroshi stayed a few steps back, dodging the detectives and specialists hustling back and forth from the body to the evidence bags in the wider lane. Hiroshi moved closer and Sakaguchi stood up, blocking a full view of the body.

The medical examiner looked up from where she was crouched over the body. “Except for his spine, he’s in two pieces. Short sword. Single stroke. Clean as a laser scalpel.” She stood up, her white coat gleaming in the lights, and continued. “You get sloppier cuts from a sushi chef. For now, it looks like the knife entered near the hip bone, angled up through the liver, stomach and intestines, dipped under the ribs and just nicked the heart. The cut line is—”

“OK, OK, we got it,” Hiroshi said.

One of the younger detectives back by the crime scene tape called for Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi, who nodded for Hiroshi to stay and listen. Hiroshi started to protest, but Sakaguchi twisted away back to where evidence was being bagged and filed. Hiroshi looked away from the body into the dark sky above the over-bright cul-de-sac and pulled his wool coat tight with hands deep in his pockets. He needed a new winter coat.

The medical examiner looked surprised at Hiroshi’s inattention to her and the corpse. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t like hearing it.” Hiroshi examined the doors of the small drinking places and stared at the crisscrossing knot of wires overhead. How could that not be dangerous, all those wires in the tight warren of wood?

“Most people are the other way; they can’t look.” The examiner dropped her blood-splattered gloves in a bag.

“I can’t do that, either.”

“You can read my report later.” She shrugged and walked off.

Hiroshi looked at her and looked away, wondering why Sakaguchi had called him, regretting he’d agreed to come. What use was his English here? A photographer was working on specific angles and areas to capture. Hiroshi felt relieved when the camera flash bleached out the reality of it all for an instant.

Out in the large lane, Sakaguchi was talking with Ueno, Sugamo and Osaki. The three hard-working detectives bowed to Hiroshi, not having seen him in months, but not asking where he’d been. All three were younger than Sakaguchi, about the same size, double or triple Hiroshi’s. Ueno and Osaki had stocky rugby bodies, and still played in the police league. Ueno was taller and thinner than the others, but Osaki was small and solid, the number 8 guy at the back of the scrum. Sugamo carried his weight in his chest and gut, a former sumo wrestler, like Sakaguchi.

“Why am I here again?” Hiroshi asked Sakaguchi, more impatiently than he intended.

“There’s a file I need you to see,” Sakaguchi whispered.

“You brought me here to see a file?” Everything had been so neat, clean and simple in his office. “Why not just send it to me?”

Everyone paused. Saito the bureau chief’s yes-man and second in command, had just walked in to the crime scene.

“I’ll take him this time,” Sugamo said.

Saito always showed up late, ordered everyone around, and left before the work got done. Someone had to head him off at every crime scene to keep him from screwing things up. It was Sugamo’s turn to send him packing.

“I’ll get the computer,” Osaki said.

They both hurried off. Hiroshi had heard from them that during the interim after Takamatsu got suspended for conduct violations, Saito took over and managed to irritate everyone, except, apparently, the current chief who kept him on as assistant chief. After that, Sakaguchi’s steady hand and calm formality was a relief.

Sakaguchi turned to Hiroshi, “Can you call Takamatsu and get him over here? He covered a sword case a few years back.”

Hiroshi shook his head. “He’s the last person I want to talk to, and he’s not supposed to be here anyway. He’s still suspended…”

Sakaguchi was not listening. All around them, the crew followed their meticulous routine. Hiroshi found himself the only person with nothing to do, so he called Takamatsu.

Takamatsu picked up right away. “You’re talking to me again?”

“I’m calling for Sakaguchi. He wants to know about another case a few years back? Sword cut?”

“Got another one?” Takamatsu asked.

“Sakaguchi wants you to take a look.”

“Can’t. Stakeout. Love hotel. The girl’s something. The guy won’t take long.”

“Send a fox to catch a fox.”

“I might never come back to detective work. This pays better, and no paperwork.”

“We’re in Golden Gai.”

Takamatsu hesitated. “Is the chief there?”

“Saito’s here.”

“Same difference.”

“Sugamo’s getting rid of him.”

Takamatsu went silent for a minute, then cursed.

“What?” Hiroshi huffed, tired of Takamatsu’s games.

“You made me miss my shot. He’s got her inside already. Damn!”

“So, get over here.” Hiroshi hung up and avoided the body by studying the signs over the doors of the small bars that lined the alley: Afterward, Hang 1 On, Here and Now, Pan-Pan. Even as other Tokyo neighborhoods were leveled to throw up bland humdrum buildings, Golden Gai’s retro postwar vibe, fire hazard layout and scruffy comfort never changed. The alleys and the bars—seating six or seven at most—teemed with energy. Usually. With the police there, none of the places had opened.

Osaki walked over with an open laptop, rested it on an abandoned barstool, inserted a USB drive and clicked on a file. “I had it earlier, but it’s a big file.”

Hiroshi drew his coat around him in the cold and glanced back at the corpse slumped over a concrete step at the edge of the cul-de-sac. He refocused on the computer screen and moved over a little when Sugamo returned to the scrum around the laptop.

“You got rid of Saito?” Osaki asked.

“He said it was getting late.” Sugamo gave a disgusted little snort.

Sakaguchi walked towards them but stopped to answer his phone. As he listened he pointed at Sugamo. “Go rescue Takamatsu. They won’t let him past the perimeter.”

Sugamo walked off and in a minute came back with Takamatsu.

Sakaguchi nodded towards the body.

Without a word, Takamatsu passed his hand-tailored jacket and European raincoat to one of the young detectives. He took off his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves, then slipped on booties and gloves before starting to survey the entire grid, first right-left and then up-down, then the same in reverse, using his finger to mark off areas.

Hiroshi wondered who the dead man was and why he’d been killed so violently, and in such an unexpected place. He watched Takamatsu squat over the exposed corpse and get down close to the raw open viscera. Takamatsu was never fazed by anything. Hiroshi watched him walk a perimeter around the body, taking in the scene from every angle, then, he reversed the circle and did it all again. Hiroshi could barely look in the direction of the corpse, much less at the details.

Finally, Takamatsu pulled off the gloves and booties and came over. He spoke to Hiroshi in a loud, teacher-like voice. “It’s the small things lodged in the back of your mind that often break a case. Put them in. Let your mind work on them.”

Hiroshi pretended to ignore him, still miffed at Takamatsu after the case the summer before. Takamatsu’s indiscretion, to say the least, had set up Hiroshi for a fight that nearly killed him. No one mentioned that it was a woman who had done the damage.

Takamatsu said, “That little stiletto wasn’t much help. Check out that splintered door.” The door had fallen in on itself, hanging from the hinges, exposing the small counter and stools inside.

The medical examiner oversaw the transfer of the corpse with a plastic liner that slid under the body. It took four of the medical staff plus the examiner several tries to get the body, the top and bottom nearly in two, into the body bag and onto the gurney. The medical examiner turned to get Sakaguchi’s final approval to take away the body.

Stopping their work, Sakaguchi, Takamatsu and the other detectives put their hands together and bowed in prayer to the dead man as the attendants see-sawed the gurney back and forth around the tight turn of the narrow alley.

After he passed, Takamatsu c****d his head at Hiroshi, straightening his dark red tie and gold cufflinks. “It was two different guys, two different swords, before.”

Hiroshi turned away but kept listening.

Takamatsu continued, “We never solved them. Unpaid loan, right-wingers, vendetta, who knows? One was a long tanto sword and the other a short nodachi field sword. Each cut leaves its traces.”

“Like a bullet?” Hiroshi shook his head at Takamatsu’s unending self-assurance.

“Yes. Like that. You need a specialist.”

Hiroshi said, “And I suppose you’re a specialist on sword cuts along with everything else?”

“Still sulking?” Takamatsu asked Hiroshi. “I’m the one who got suspended. And two months in the hospital. What did you get? A few bruises?”

“I almost got killed. You got vacation.”

Takamatsu smiled and lit another cigarette, his gold lighter clicking shut. “Being suspended is like vacation. First one I’ve ever had.”

Sakaguchi looked at Takamatsu. “What’s your guess?”

Takamatsu shrugged. “Runner for some yakuza group. Money, messages. Independent contractor.”

“The USB was driven so deeply inside, the medical examiner thought at first he might have swallowed it. She said it must have been the force of the sword. The packet of cigarettes was in there too. In pieces.”

“More proof tobacco is bad for your health.” Takamatsu looked for a place to grind out his cigarette, but seeing none, he pulled out a portable ashtray, slipped the butt inside, sealed it and put it back in his pocket.

Osaki looked impatient with the computer, but the heavy file opened at last, conjuring images pixel by pixel. When the first one filled in completely, the detectives stared at a Japanese ukiyoe woodblock print of entangled lovers. The man’s over-large, wrinkled p***s was half-in half-out of the woman’s swollen vulva. The woman’s face reeled back in open-mouth, closed-eye pleasure while the man’s eyebrows bent sharply in concentration. Around the edge of the print were Post-it notes and pencil sketches describing the details of the print in English.

“That’s what you want me to translate?” Hiroshi pointed at the notes around the outside.

Sakaguchi told Osaki to enlarge the image and go to the next one. The next print showed the open kimonos and swirling genitals of two lovers standing on the street with their geta sandals on. Through the window frame of the house, another couple curved together half-hidden except for their faces in ecstasy and their groins interlocked. At the bottom of the print, a dog was draped over another dog, leering while going at it. Long lines of dialogue in curved grass script filled the empty background. Even the dogs were talking dirty.

Takamatsu laughed. “Doesn’t seem like a reason to kill anyone.”

“There must have been another USB drive,” Sakaguchi mused.

After a few minutes of silence, the detectives staring at the screen, Sugamo burst out laughing, his huge body relieving its tension for the first time Hiroshi had ever seen.

Takamatsu snickered. “It’s amazing what you can find at murder scenes.”

Still chuckling, Sugamo said, “I’ll go check on the others and hurry up the new guys.”

“So, what do the notes say?” Sakaguchi asked.

Hiroshi leaned forward and squinted. “It’s just descriptions of what makes the print authentic, notes on the color, configuration. Stuff that a collector or curator would want to know.”

“Nothing else?” Sakaguchi asked.

Hiroshi shrugged. “It looks like notes on the quality of the print, the authenticity of the colors. There’s a few translations of dialogue. That’s it. You think it’s some kind of code?”

Sakaguchi shrugged. “I don’t speak English.”

“It’s got to be connected,” Takamatsu said. “It was inside him.”

Osaki asked, “Want to see the others?” He clicked through a few more prints of entwined bodies, genitals and arms and legs and kimonos writhing in impossible positions.

“What do you call this style of print?” Sakaguchi asked.

“Shunga. Spring pictures,” Hiroshi answered.

Sakaguchi’s cellphone buzzed. He squinted at the message on the screen and turned to Hiroshi. “Do you know the name Bernard Mattson?”

Hiroshi did. Mattson was a well-known American diplomat and specialist on Japanese culture. He often appeared on discussion panels and history shows on the public TV station, NHK. From the frown on Sakaguchi’s face, Hiroshi could tell he wasn’t going back to the office anytime soon.