“I would not like to have this woman as my enemy.”
“Perhaps you already do,” Kati said lightly. “I think, Masao, that you know women less well than you imagine. You think all women are good.”
“Only compared to men. Anyway, I do not like to judge, and good is really a meaningless word. Tell me about Ana. Is her throat better?”
“It’s still scratchy. I think I’ll keep her home tomorrow. She can play in the sunshine in the garden, and one more day out of school won’t hurt. It’s better than medicine. Can you imagine paying a doctor twenty dollars for a house call?”
Masuto considered telling Kati that he had just spent ten dollars for three brandies, and then he thought better of it.
“I’ll meditate a little now-only for ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Oh-will you? Then I am sure I’ll be asleep.”
“Then I’ll meditate in the morning,” he replied, smiling. “You see who is the master here.”
“I see that you spent the evening with an exotic dancer, whatever that may be-something nasty, I’m sure.” She began to giggle, covering her mouth with both hands.
Masuto was awake at six o’clock, refreshed and rested. He put on his saffron robe, leaving Kati still asleep, and went into the living room to meditate. He had often thought of how pleasant it would be to have a small room, walls painted ivory, with no furniture other than a grass mat and a single black meditation pillow, but for a police sergeant with two small children that was impossible. He had a fleeting thought of the two acres that his Uncle Toda would certainly leave him, but he cast that aside. It was an unworthy thought, and in any case, Uncle Toda would probably live for ninety-five useful years.
The meditation took hold. He was alive without moving, listening without hearing, focused entirely on the even rise and fall of his breath. Somewhere, Kati’s alarm clock sounded, and then there was the laughter and the muted sounds of the children. As the meditation ended, the room had begun to fill with the delicious smell of crisp, fried bacon.
He ate an enormous breakfast, three eggs, bacon, and two of the fish cakes which Kati had saved from the night before, washed down with two cups of coffee. With Ana protesting against being kept out of school and with the boy dashing through the door to meet the school bus and with Kati glowing in a lovely pink and green kimono, it appeared to be the most normal of days in the most normal of worlds, and Masuto reflected that although his work now and then took Turn into the depths of a nightmare, he was nevertheless the most fortunate of men.
With that kind of glowing thought, he could not resist the temptation to spend at least fifteen minutes in his rose garden. There he found chafers, which must be removed, one by one by hand. Chafers-and he was already late. Groaning, he abandoned the roses and went out to his car. It took him awhile to get his mind off the subject of chafers and onto the curious jigsaw puzzle of the previous day.
Beckman was already in the office when Masuto arrived, his feet on his desk, drinking coffee from a container and eating a piece of Danish pastry.
“Sy, you remember yesterday I told you to catch up with the agronomists?”
“Yeah, but then Stillman got himself scragged, and we never caught up with anything. Anyway, it says here in the Times that they’re pulling out on the five o’clock flight for Miami.”
“And what about the clothes?”
“What clothes? You want some of this Danish?” Beckman asked him.
“No, it’s poison. The Russian’s clothes. The drowned man.”
“Yeah, that. I called Fred Comstock this morning as soon as I got in. He hasn’t turned anything up.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Right. He’s a living proof that the body can survive after the brain dies. What difference do the clothes make now, Masao? We know who he is.”
“I don’t give a damn about the clothes. It’s where they were hidden and why they were hidden.”
“They’ll turn up.”
“Perhaps. Sy, get Sweeney in here, will you, and tell him to bring whatever he has.”
Small, skinny, truculent, Sweeney watched Masuto carefully remove the brandy glass from his handkerchief.
“Going to offer me a drink, Sergeant?”
Masuto grinned at Sweeney. “Why don’t you sit down?”
“Why the hell are you being polite to me?”
“I am always polite to you,” Masuto said.
“You,” said Sweeney, “are why I don’t miss a confession, so I can tell the priest that I dream of cutting your throat. You would abolish me. You are the clown who is always telling the press that fingerprints are a crock. Now you want favors.”
“I have seen the light,” Masuto said humbly.
“That’ll be the day.”
“Sweeney,” Masuto said, “I admire you. You are the most professional part of this department. Even the L.A. cops downtown say that you’re better than anyone they have.”
“Bullshit.”
“Ask Beckman.”
“That’s right,” said Beckman. “That’s what they say.”
“Well, goddamn it, I know my business.”
“I know you do. Now tell me, did you find anything in Stillman’s room that matches up with what the L.A. cops took off the yellow Cadillac?”
Sweeney grinned.
“You did?”
“Kind of surprised, aren’t you?”
“What did you get?”
“One print. Second finger, I think. But both of them are good, clear prints and they match.”
“Good. Good. Maybe the right hand?”
“I think so.”
“Great. Now take this glass, and see if you can come up with another print that matches the two you have. It’s a possibility.”
Sweeney nodded. “You think you’re on to something?”
“If I am, I’m going to credit you big, Sweeney. I mean that.”
“Just show respect, Masao. That’s all I ask.”
“You have it. Now listen, Sweeney, do the L.A. cops have a machine that can transmit prints to Interpol?”
“If it’s a machine, they got it.”
“They can send pictures,” Beckman said, “so they can send prints.”
“What else did you pick up in the room that isn’t Stillman’s or the chambermaid’s?”
“I got three good ones,” Sweeney said.
“Put them through to Interpol, and all of them to Washington. The matching set, the car and the room-put them through to the New York cops and to Chicago. But all of them to Interpol, and all of them to Washington.”
“That’s going to cost a bundle, Masao, and you know how the L.A. cops are. They want a guarantee that they’re going to get paid.”
“Get an authorization from Wainwright.”
“He’s not here,” said Beckman. “He went downtown this morning to meet with the Feds. He said to remind you that the G-man wants you to bring all the records on the case down there at eleven o’clock.”
“Get the authorization. I’ll sign it myself.”
When Sweeney had left to get the authorization, Beckman said to Masuto, “What’s this all about, Masao?”
“A lot of wild guesses. I could put them together, but what would it mean? I still have nothing.”
“Whose hand was around that brandy glass?”
“Binnie Vance’s.”
“You don’t say.” He looked at Masuto with new respect. “When did you see her?”
“Last night at the Ventura Hotel. Would you believe it, ten dollars for three brandies?”
“Is she all they say?”
“She is.”
“And you think she killed Stillman?”
“If she did, I’d like to know why.”
“She only just married him. That’s a quick turnoff.”
Sweeney came back with the authorization. Masuto signed it and then said to Sweeney, “Would you do me a favor?”
“Now that you seen the light, yes.”
“Stop off at the Ventura Hotel on your way downtown. There’s a man called Peterson who runs the Arabian Room, or if you don’t find him, there must be a P.R. office for the hotel. Tell them you want a picture of Binnie Vance, and then have the L.A. cops put it through with the fingerprints.”
“To all them places?”
“We might as well.”