“It’s about Noriyoshi,” Sano said. “We can either talk here, in public, or somewhere else. Your choice.” Impressive though the act was, he didn’t intend to let Kikunojo get away.
Awareness widened Kikunojo’s eyes before his lids slipped down again. He nodded demurely and said from behind the fan, “Come with me.”
Sano followed Kikunojo’s stately figure through a door near the stage and down a dim passage to the onnagata’s dressing room. They left their shoes outside the curtained doorway, and Sano noted with amusement that Kikunojo’s were bigger than his own. In the tiny cubicle, bright kimonos hung from standing racks. Five wigs on wooden heads occupied one shelf, while others held fans, hair ornaments, shoes, and folded undergarments. Brushes, powder puffs, and makeup jars littered the dressing table; silk scarves were draped over the large mirror. A table held packages similar to the ones Sano had just seen Kikunojo receive, probably gifts from other admirers. Had Niu Yukiko been one of them? The suicide note suggested a connection between her and the Kabuki theater, even if she hadn’t written it. And Lady Niu had commented upon the theater’s bad influence on young girls.
Kikunojo knelt before the dressing table. Sano knelt, too, feeling awkward. True onnagata like Kikunojo never stepped out of their female personae, even offstage. They claimed that this allowed them to perform their roles more convincingly. Was he supposed to join in the charade by addressing Kikunojo as a woman? He couldn’t forget that Kikunojo was a man. The actor’s very male odor of sweat, easily discernible in such close quarters, served as a vivid reminder.
To his relief, Kikunojo dropped his act, either because he sensed Sano’s discomfort or because he saw no need to waste his efforts on a yoriki.
“Whatever you have to say, please make it quick,” he said. He tossed aside his fan, lifted his head, and straightened his drooping posture. But his voice remained high and girlish, as if playing women onstage had somehow feminized him. “I have another performance this afternoon, and some very important business to conduct before then.”
“Such as paying someone like Noriyoshi to keep your secrets?” Sano asked, hoping to catch the actor off guard.
Kikunojo just shrugged. “So you’ve heard he was blackmailing me,” he said. “I hope you won’t mind if I undress? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Not at all.” Sano watched, intrigued, as Kikunojo removed his purple kerchief to reveal his bare crown. The actor undid a complicated system of pins and knots that anchored the long black wig to his own hair, which was slicked back and tied in a tight knot at the nape of his neck. Then he picked up a cloth, dipped it into a jar of oil, and scrubbed the makeup from his face. In a startling transformation, the beautiful young Princess Taema became a man of regular but unremarkable features, long past his thirtieth birthday.
“Noriyoshi won’t be troubling me or anyone else now,” Kikunojo went on. “He’s dead, and I must say I’m not sorry. The little weasel!”
You wouldn’t be so outspoken about your feelings if you knew you were a murder suspect, Sano thought. Kikunojo had just made his motive clear.
“What was he blackmailing you for?” he asked.
Kikunojo stood and untied his sash. He shed his outer- and under-kimonos. Beneath them he wore cotton pads over his chest, hips, and buttocks. These he removed to expose a slender but well-muscled body. Sano decided that Kikunojo would definitely have had the strength to kill Noriyoshi and Yukiko and throw their bodies into the river.
“There’s an odd story making the rounds,” Kikunojo said. “People are saying that Noriyoshi didn’t really commit suicide. That he was murdered. Have you heard?”
“I may have.” Even as Sano decided that Wisteria must have spread the story, he could appreciate Kikunojo’s trick. The actor had neatly avoided answering the question by throwing out an interesting fact. Such quick thinking bespoke a man intelligent enough to plan and execute an elaborate murder. “What was he blackmailing you for?” he repeated, refusing to fall for the trick.
Kikunojo took a man’s black silk kimono decorated with gold cartwheels and blue waves from the rack. This he put on over a blue under-kimono, tying it with a plain black sash. “I hardly think that’s any of your business,” he said.
He looked with feigned interest toward the door. Through a gap in the curtain, a portion of the stage was visible. The intermission entertainment had begun for those members of the audience who hadn’t left the theater. An actor dressed as a samurai performed the yariodori, a comic dance that poked fun at the retainers of daimyo. He waved and flicked his plumed war staff in the manner of a woman doing her spring housecleaning. The cheers presumably came from the commoners in the audience; the hisses and catcalls from the samurai.
“It is if Noriyoshi was murdered,” Sano said.
Kikunojo gave an exasperated sigh as he pulled a black cloak over his kimono. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’ve come here to find out.” When Sano didn’t reply, he said, “Oh, all right. Noriyoshi found out that I was seeing a married lady. Her husband would kill us both if he found out. You know how it is.”
Sano did. Kabuki theater had been founded about a hundred years before by a Shinto priestess from Izumo Shrine. But Kabuki had soon lost its religious associations. Courtesans took up the theatrics, and their lewd performances overstepped the bounds of propriety. Male admirers vied for their favors, often creating public disturbances. The government responded by banning female performers from the theater. Since then, all female roles had been played by men. But the troubles hadn’t ended. Onnagata proved just as adept at creating scandal as the courtesans. They attracted both women who found their masquerade titillating and men who simply liked men. Kikunojo, with his clandestine affair, was part of a tradition.
“The shogun can do as he pleases-with the wives and daughters of his ministers, yet,” Kikunojo continued. “But we ordinary adulterers get punished, if not by irate spouses, then by the authorities. What do you think of that, yoriki?”
Sano thought that Kikunojo had once again tried to divert the conversation. “Rank commands privileges, Kikunojo-san. Now, about Noriyoshi?”
Kikunojo shot him a look of grudging respect. “Noriyoshi kept asking for more and more money,” he said. “He bled me dry. Finally, about a month ago, I got to thinking: if he talked, who would believe him? It would be his word against mine, and who was he? So I took the chance. I said I wasn’t going to pay anymore, and I told him why.” Kikunojo took a white bridal kimono and red under-kimono from the rack and laid them on a square cloth with fresh socks and purple kerchief, the wig he’d removed, and a selection of makeup. “I should have done it a long time ago. Because he never talked, and he never asked for any more money.”
If Kikunojo had really stopped paying, where had the money in Noriyoshi’s room come from, Sano wondered. He saw a way to take advantage of the opening Kikunojo had given him.
“Suppose Noriyoshi was murdered,” he said. “Could you prove you were somewhere else when it happened?”
Kikunojo laughed as he tied the ends of the cloth around his possessions. “My good man, even if I’d wanted to kill Noriyoshi, I wouldn’t have had the time. The night he died, I had a rehearsal until well after midnight. We’re starting a new play tomorrow. After that… ” His smile eerily evoked the lovely Princess Taema. “After that, I was with my lady.”