“I take it,” said Saburo, “that it was the first time Sachi … er … waited on him?”

Jinzaemon chewed his lip. “I wish I’d sent for someone else, but I thought she could use a bit extra. Who would think that a blind shampoo girl would kill a grown man?”

“So did this Nakamura expect special services from the shampoo girl?”

“Of course, he did,” cried the old man gleefully. “That one never missed a chance. In the quarter, they call him a champion. He’s a real bull, that man.”

That meant Nakamura was a steady and well-known customer in the amusement quarter. Apparently, his interest in women carried over to bathhouses.

The fat woman gave the old man another push. “Men are all alike,” she said, making a face. “Their minds are always in the gutter. A real bull? That skinny runt wasn’t young enough to get it up, let alone get a reputation.”

Her companion rubbed his arm. “What do you know, woman? Do you spend time in the quarter? Do you listen to the women talking? I tell you, he was always there. Every day! He has his favorites and goes regularly to some of the houses. He’s got the money. Why shouldn’t he?”

The conversation was getting away from Sachi. Saburo said, “Come on, Jinzaemon. You haven’t answered. Did Nakamura ask for Sachi because he wanted her to perform sexual services?”

The bathhouse owner said sullenly, “He asked for her. I don’t know what he wanted. I told you, I run a decent establishment.”

The other two promptly giggled again. The old man told Saburo, “Jinzaemon has an arrangement with some of the women from the quarter. If one of his customers asks for something special—he waggled his eyebrows—he sends for them and puts them in a private room. The girls share their fees with him, and the customers tip him generously.”

Jinzaemon flushed with anger. “That’s a lie, Genzo! Don’t you go about telling such tales, you sorry piece of shit!”

He started for the old man, but Saburo caught his arm. “Hold on. Jinzaemon. You don’t need any more trouble today.”

Jinzaemon glared, muttered something, and went back into his place of business. The old man and the woman looked pleased with themselves. They had come for a gossip and had enjoyed it. No doubt, they would carry the information with them to entertain friends and neighbors. And gradually the story would become ever more outrageous. Saburo almost felt sorry for Jinzaemon.

Still, those two had little to fill their days. The old man could not work any longer and spent his time talking to the women in the amusement quarter, no doubt a vicarious pleasure at his age. And the woman probably had a daughter-in-law or two at home and could leave the housework to them. It is said, if you gossip about a person, his shadow will appear. In this case, they knew a good deal about the victim, and Saburo wanted information about Nakamura. He asked, “Where did this Nakamura live?”

“Above his shop on Gojo-Bomon,” the woman said promptly. “He’s a curio dealer, but that’s mostly just for show. Why do you want to know?”

Saburo saw rekindled interest in her eyes and laughed. “Maybe I just want to see where the famous bull resided. Or maybe I want to pick up some tips on getting women.”

They chuckled. Genzo said slyly, “My throat got dry from all this talking on a hot day. What say we have a cup of wine?”

Saburo agreed eagerly. “I’m pretty dry myself. Allow me to invite both of you.”

They looked at each other and grinned. The threesome walked to the same wine shop where Saburo has eaten and sat down outside on one of the benches.

They proved how parched they were from all the talking by consuming three flasks of strong sake each, but the wine oiled their tongues amazingly. Putting aside their squabbles, they took pleasure in regaling Saburo with Nakamura’s habits, background, family, and business methods.

The picture that emerged was very unpleasant. Saburo developed an intense hostility toward Nakamura. Men like that deserved killing. In fact, the killer had done his fellow citizens a big favor by ridding the world of the man. Perhaps a few, like Jinzaemon and a handful of aunties and harlots regretted his passing, but for the rest things must be looking up.

And even the women in the quarter might feel a relief. According to Genzo. Nakamura had enjoyed inflicting pain. Mrs. Ozaki was well-informed about Nakamura’s household. He lived in the fourth quarter in a fine merchant’s house he had bought a few years ago. A small curio shop in the front catered to the nobility by offering high-priced art objects, but Nakamura’s money mostly came from the loans he extended to people.

“Any chance he might have creditors among the good people?” Saburo asked Mrs. Ozaki.

“Creditors?”

“People who owe him money.”

She looked vague. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

Genzo said, “He did most of his business in the quarter and on the market. The shop is run by his son.”

“What about his family? A rich man has many wives and sons. What are they like?”

Mrs. Ozaki downed another cup of wine. “No wife. She died. At his age, he likes the harlots much better. He has a son and three daughters. The son’s married. They say the daughters are very ugly, but two have husbands. I expect that cost him dearly. The third keeps house for her father. It’s not a big job. He’s never home. In the daytime he goes about making money, and the night he spends with the whores.”

Genzo chuckled. “What a life!”

Mrs. Ozaki snapped, “It got him killed, didn’t it? So you’d best think again.”

Genzo protested, “It wasn’t the money or the sex that got him killed. It was a clumsy shampoo girl. He should’ve grown a beard.” He felt his own clean-shaven chin. “Maybe I’ll grow one myself.”

They laughed at him. Mrs. Ozaki cried, “Too late for you, unless you can grow more than hair.” This amused her so much she fell into choking giggles and had to have her back thumped by Saburo.

Genzo raised an admonitory finger. “Don’t trust a woman, Saburo, even if she’s borne you seven children.”

Struck by the truth of this saying as much as by the fact that his guests were getting into a drunken quarrel, Saburo paid for the wine and left.

9

The Tides of Life

The next morning, Akitada felt a great yearning to go to Tamako’s room and sit there, thinking of her, talking to her, perhaps telling her about the suicide of Lady Ogata and about the strange characters he had met that day.

Alas, it was not to be. Even this intangible bond with his wife was denied him. He went to his own room when he got home. It was blessedly empty of Saburo, but here the deepest darkness seemed to reside, a loneliness so profound that he could not bear it any longer.

He stepped out onto his narrow veranda. The weather had turned. The sky was clouded over and the scent of rain hung in the air. The garden was still lush with foliage, a small bird darted at a worm and flew off, and a few gnats still danced above the fish pond. It was late in the year, and soon the bird would huddle on a branch, shivering in the cold. A fish jumped for the gnats, but the pond, too, would become still and dark, and the fish would burrow into the muddy bottom.

He spotted something white on the side of the pond and went to investigate. It was a dead koi. He bent to pick it up by its tail and saw that it was a female. Laying it gently among some of the ferns, he took it as another omen that death would walk beside him from now on, that, even though at a great distance from Tamako when she died, he had become contaminated by death. His Shinto faith forbade physical closeness to death and dying, but it struck him that a physical closeness between two people in life must necessarily mean that one person’s death would touch the other. So it had been when he had lost his first son.