"I'll help you," Yoritomo said.
He seemed to have put aside his animosity toward Sano, but then he was smart enough to realize that if they didn't band together and find Lady Nobuko, both families would suffer.
Even after Sano and Yoritomo marked off the waterways that were too narrow or shallow to accommodate the floating brothel, there remained the whole Sumida River, plus wide stretches along other rivers and canals. Yanagisawa took the brush from Yoritomo and drew a line around half the area. "My army will search these," he told Sano. "Yours can do the others."
He and Yoritomo left. Marume said, "I hate to think of how many boats there are that fit the general description."
"And ours has no name or other distinctive features, according to Nanbu," said Fukida.
"Whoever owns it wouldn't want to call attention to it," Sano said. All brothels outside the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter were illegal. Nanbu had claimed he didn't know the name of the boat's owner.
"Finding it could take forever," Marume said glumly.
Hirata entered the room. He said, "Maybe not."
38
Sano and Hirata stood over the two oxcart drivers, who lay in a muddy courtyard inside Edo Jail. Jinshichi's and Gombei's hands were tied behind their backs and their ankles bound with rope.
The big, muscular Jinshichi glowered at his captors from beneath his heavy brow. In the short time he'd spent on the run, his whiskers had grown into a bristly beard. The scar on his cheekbone was flushed red with anger, but he didn't speak.
Gombei, the wiry younger man, squirmed as he said to Sano, "Why are we under arrest again?" He now had three teeth missing. He'd lost another one during the tussle with Hirata, while resisting arrest. His grin oozed blood. His cunning eyes sparkled with fright. "We haven't done anything wrong."
"Then why did you run away from the men I sent to watch you?" Sano said.
"We got tired of being spied on," Jinshichi said sullenly.
"It's not our fault they couldn't keep up with us," Gombei said. Nervous ness edged his good humor.
"We're innocent," Jinshichi said. "We already told you so."
"Why were you hiding out on Ishikawajima?" Hirata asked.
Despite some misgivings, Sano had decided to let Hirata participate in the interrogation. Hirata had caught the drivers; he deserved to help question them. And his mysterious pursuer hadn't yet made another appearance.
"We weren't hiding," Gombei said with earnest sincerity. "We couldn't go to work because your soldiers would have found us. We needed to make money."
Sano was fed up with evasions. Instinct and evidence told him the men were guilty of kidnapping if not rape. "What's the matter, didn't you make enough by kidnapping women?"
"We didn't touch those women," Jinshichi said, surly and vexed. "They told you so themselves."
Gombei grinned and licked blood from his lips. "You had to let us go last time."
"Not this time." Although Sano was opposed to torture, for once he must bend his own rules. But he would employ the mildest form of torture, one used primarily for women.
Into the courtyard walked two jailers. They were eta, toughs dressed in ragged clothes stained with sweat, grime, and blood from previous torture sessions. Sano said, "Perform kusuguri-zeme on these prisoners."
Kusuguri-zeme was the term for torture by tickling. It was considered harmless, and perhaps sexually arousing for male torturers when they performed it on women. The eta didn't look thrilled by the prospect of applying it to the oxcart drivers, but Jinshichi and Gombei chortled.
"Do you really think you can tickle us into confessing?" Gombei said.
"We'll see," Sano said.
The eta crouched beside the drivers, removed their sandals, and began tickling their feet. Gombei flinched and giggled. A smile tugged Jinshichi's mouth. Soon both men were laughing uproariously. The eta worked with grim concentration. Hirata's face was expressionless, his emotions under control. Sano suppressed the urge to laugh. Mirth was contagious.
"Don't let them make you say anything," Jinshichi ordered Gombei as they guffawed and thrashed.
"I won't," Gombei said, gasping for breath. His body jerked involuntarily; distress showed through his humor. "No matter what."
The eta proceeded to tickle the men's armpits. Gombei and Jinshichi bucked, contorted, and tried to roll away from their tormenters. Their laughter took on a ragged, hysterical edge.
"Did you kidnap my cousin Chiyo?" Sano said. The men just kept laughing. Sano prompted, "She was the woman with the baby. At Awashima Shrine. You took her, didn't you?"
"No," Gombei blurted between giggles.
Jinshichi shook his head, panted, and roared.
"Suit yourselves," Hirata said.
The eta poked their fingers between Jinshichi's and Gombei's ribs, along their waists. Soon the men were covered with mud, sobbing while they laughed. Suddenly it didn't seem funny to Sano anymore. The line between mirth and misery had been crossed. Kusuguri-zeme didn't inflict permanent damage, but it caused as much distress as pain did. It was cruel torture indeed. Sano stoically forced himself to watch. He told himself these men were criminals who deserved to suffer until they talked.
"I can't bear it any longer," Gombei whimpered while he laughed and choked. "Make them stop, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"
The eta looked to Sano, who nodded. They stopped tickling, rose, and backed away from the prisoners. Gombei moaned and wept with gratitude. Jinshichi said to his partner, "You stupid coward." He was gasping as hard as if he'd run all the way across town. Both men's faces were awash in dirt and tears. Sano felt almost as relieved as they did.
"Did you kidnap my cousin?" Sano repeated.
"Yes," Gombei said weakly. "We gave her a potion that we buy from a druggist in Kanda. It makes people go to sleep, and they can't move."
Jinshichi muttered in disgust, but he nodded.
"Who hired you to kidnap her?" Sano asked.
"I don't know his name," Gombei said.
"He's lying," Hirata told Sano.
"Ogita, Nanbu, or Joju," Sano said. "Which one was it?"
Startled, Gombei said, "How-?"
"How did I find out who your customers are?" Sano explained, "I've been checking into your background since we last met. The proprietor at the Drum Teahouse told me about your side business. He was happy to supply the names."
"I'll kill that rat," Jinshichi fumed.
"If you live long enough," Marume said. "Tell Chamberlain Sano which one raped his cousin."
"It was Ogita," Jinshichi said, reluctant to confess, yet eager to avoid more tickling.
At last Sano knew the truth. At last he had a target for the anger he felt on behalf of Chiyo and his newfound clan. He thought of Ogita lying to his face, and an intense hatred filled him like venom infusing his veins, like hot smoke suffocating his lungs. He wanted to lash out at the merchant and strike him down. But Ogita wasn't here, and now wasn't the time for Sano to let loose his temper.
"Ogita wanted a woman who'd just had a baby," Gombei said. "He wanted to drink milk from her breasts while he had sex with her. You can't get that in Yoshiwara. So we went to Awashima Shrine. It always has plenty of new mothers. All we had to do was pick one who looked easy. I pretended I was hurt, I called for help, and she came right to me."
That he could speak so casually about his crime! Sano felt his hatred grow to encompass the oxcart drivers for their part in Chiyo's rape.
"I didn't know she was your cousin," Gombei said. "If I had, I'd have kidnapped somebody else."
Sano wanted to grab the man by his hair, grind his face into the dirt, wipe off its sheepish expression, then cut off his head. But he wasn't finished with Jinshichi. "You did kidnap somebody else, didn't you? The girl Fumiko."