“I’m here about your friend, Noriyoshi,” Sano said, turning from his examination of the room and back to her face.
Her eyes, liquid and luminous, seemed to darken. Turning abruptly to the round mirror on her dressing table, she picked up a comb and began to arrange her hair, drawing the long, shining black mass up at the sides into a complicated loop at the back. Her movements had a languid, sensuous quality that Sano found extremely erotic and arousing, despite his preoccupation with the murder case.
“I refuse to discuss Noriyoshi. And I’m expecting a guest.” Her voice trembled. “So get out. Now.”
The sadness and absence of animosity in her voice told Sano that grief, not anger, had provoked her rude dismissal. He hesitated, unwilling to cause her pain. But he didn’t want to leave without learning what she knew.
Wisteria flung her comb to the floor and faced him. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Tears glistened in her eyes. “If you’ve come to tell me that Noriyoshi committed suicide for love of some silly little upper-class goose, and that his body will be put out on the riverbank for people to gawk at… well, I already know. The story is all over the quarter. So go. Leave me in peace.”
Sano decided to tell her as much of the truth as possible. “Noriyoshi didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.”
She stared at him. Sounds from the next room filled the silence: samisen music, with a male and a female voice singing softly. Her face registered first disbelief, then dawning hope.
“Murdered?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Can this be true? How do you know?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Sano said. He didn’t know if he could trust her, and he didn’t want the story of the dissection spread around Yoshiwara. “But it’s true.” He knelt beside her. “I want to find out why he was killed, and by whom. Will you help me?”
“How?”
“Tell me everything you know about Noriyoshi: his family background, what kind of man he was. Who his enemies were, and why one of them might have wanted to kill him.”
Wisteria’s eyes took on a faraway look. She began to run her fingers through her hair. Maybe the action was a nervous habit, but everything about her suggested sex-her luxurious room with the bed ready, her faint, flowery scent, her rosy mouth. Sano, watching her slender, soft hands, couldn’t help imagining them caressing his body. He shifted nervously. The room seemed very warm.
“Everyone thinks Noriyoshi was a hustler who cared only for himself and his deals,” she said. “Mention his name, and they do this.”
Looking over her shoulder as if to make sure no one was watching, she smiled slyly and pretended to count money from an imaginary hand into her own. The vulgar pose looked incongruous on someone so elegant, but it gave Sano a vivid picture of what Noriyoshi must have looked like alive.
“But he was different with me.” She paused, then went on in a lower voice. “I came to Edo from Dewa Province when I was ten. My father sold me to a brothel’s procurer because his crops had failed that year and he couldn’t afford to feed me as well as my mother and my four brothers. I started out as a maid here at the Heavenly Garden. Do you know what that was like?”
Sano nodded. Young girls, unless they showed extraordinary promise, were virtual slaves in the pleasure houses. They worked long, hard hours cleaning the rooms, helping in the kitchens, and running errands. All for inadequate food and shelter. Many died before they reached maturity; most of the others could hope to rise no higher than maid or second-class prostitute. Few became celebrated first-rank yūjo, and even fewer ever gained independence from the men who owned them.
“I met Noriyoshi a year later, when he came to the house to deliver some shunga for the ladies to show their customers. He stopped in the kitchen for some tea, and I was there peeling vegetables.” A smile of reminiscence touched Wisteria’s lips. “He asked me my name, where I was from. He must have known I was hungry; I was so thin my bones showed.” She touched the smooth rich flesh at her collarbone. “And my hair had started to fall out.
“After that, he brought me food every day when no one was watching. I was afraid that he would stop, but he didn’t. I got healthy again. My hair grew back. And Noriyoshi started to walk with me when I left the house on errands. He made me laugh at his jokes. And he started teaching me how to move, how to smile, how to talk to men. I must have learned my lessons well, because one day my owner said I didn’t have to work in the kitchen anymore. He had the maids dress me up in fine clothes. And from then on… ”
Her hand gestured toward her room and herself. “You know the rest of the story.”
“Yes.” Sano could guess how Noriyoshi, with his artist’s eye, had spotted Wisteria’s potential. He’d saved her from a harsh fate. But not unselfishly: he’d no doubt put her in his debt in order to avail himself of her favors. Sano’s eyes went to the neckline of her kimono, where the swell of her breasts began. The blood surged to his loins. For a moment, he almost envied the dead man.
Wisteria’s sharp glance rebuked him. “I know what you’re thinking,” she snapped. “But it wasn’t like that. Noriyoshi was never my lover. He preferred men, you see.”
That could explain the drawing on the artist’s desk, Sano thought.
“When I heard how he died, I was angry,” Wisteria said sadly. “Not because he’d fallen in love with that girl, or because she had managed to make him want her the way he never wanted me. But because he never told me. Never confided in me, the way he did about everything else. And now that you tell me he was murdered”-she swallowed- “I feel so ashamed of my anger.”
Sano looked away tactfully as she struggled to control her tears. He was about to ask her again who Noriyoshi’s enemies were, when someone rapped on the door.
Wisteria jumped to her feet. “Quick, quick!” She opened the cabinet door and gestured for Sano to get inside. “It’s my client. He mustn’t find you here.”
From inside the dark cabinet, Sano heard her slide open the door. He heard a low male voice, and Wisteria making excuses. “… indisposed… sorry. Perhaps tomorrow night… many thanks.” The rustle of silk as they embraced. What would it feel like to hold her himself? He was glad when the door slid shut again, interrupting his fantasy. He stepped out of the cabinet to see Wisteria unceremoniously toss her client’s gift-a silk fan-on the dressing table.
“Noriyoshi’s enemies?” she said in response to Sano’s question after they were settled again. “Which ones do you want to know about? All of them, or just the worst?”
“Start with the worst.”
Wisteria frowned, as if trying to decide who should head the list. “Kikunojo,” she said finally.
“Kikunojo?” Sano repeated in surprise. “Not the Kabuki actor? Why would he have killed Noriyoshi?”
She nodded, then shrugged. “Noriyoshi sometimes… accepted money from people in exchange for keeping their secrets.
Blackmail. The ugly, unspoken word hung between them. Sano saw Wisteria flush and pitied her for having to expose her friend’s flaws. But the flush reminded him of the way a woman looked when sensually excited, as did the way her breath quickened. His own excitement mounted. To add to his discomfort, the couple next door had abandoned their duet. A rhythmic thumping shook the thin walls. Sano looked away when Wisteria smiled briefly at him. She probably meant the smile as an apology for the noise, but to Sano, it said, “Wouldn’t you like to do what they’re doing?”
To cover his embarrassment, Sano asked quickly, “So Noriyoshi was paid for his silence. By who else besides Kikunojo?”
“One other that I know of. A sumo wrestler, but I don’t know his name.”