Sano approached a vendor who worked for him as a spy. “Good morning, Kaoru-san.”
“Good morning, Sōsakan-sama.” The short, jovial man was cutting up a huge tuna, his knife moving so fast that the pink flesh appeared to slice itself. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m looking for a man named Lightning,” Sano said. “He’s one of the Mori gang.”
When the vendor heard the name, his knife slipped. A line of blood welled on his finger and stained the fish, but he kept slicing. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any Lightning.”
“Have you seen him here recently?” Sano persisted.
“No, master.” Fear of the Mori apparently outweighed the vendor’s need for the salary Sano paid him. “I’m sorry.”
Down the aisle, Hirata was arguing with a tea-seller. “I know that everyone here pays extortion money to the Mori,” Hirata said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of them!”
Sano watched in frustration as his detectives questioned other people who shook their heads and looked terrified. The market was a center of the Mori’s criminal activity, and the gangsters usually infested the place like vermin, but today they’d made themselves scarce.
When Sano joined his men outside the building, Hirata said, “It’s as if the Mori smelled us coming and disappeared. And they’ve silenced everyone with threats.”
“I know another place to try,” Sano said, hiding the desperation that burgeoned within him.
Only a day had passed since the shogun accused him of murder and treason, but time was speeding away. The longer Sano took to solve the case, the more chance he gave Police Commissioner Hoshina to ruin his reputation and fabricate evidence against him. And Sano had serious misgivings about focusing his investigation on Lightning. If, in spite of all the clues that indicated Lightning’s guilt, someone else had killed Lord Mitsuyoshi, then Sano was wasting precious time now.
Yet he still considered Lightning his best suspect. He led his men into a labyrinth of alleys surrounding the market. Here, dilapidated buildings contained businesses that served the fish trade. Laborers crowded noodle and sushi restaurants. Shops selling nets, pails, and fishing tackle overflowed into the streets. Sano stopped outside a teahouse. He signaled Hirata and two detectives to go around to the back. Then Sano and the other three detectives drew their swords and ducked under the blue entrance curtain.
A trio of men inside the teahouse sprang to their feet. All were shabbily dressed ruffians. The lone samurai among them bolted out a back door, while his comrades drew daggers and advanced on Sano and his men. A maid shrieked, dropped a tray of sake cups, and cowered in the corner.
“Drop your weapons, and no one will get hurt,” Sano shouted.
The ruffians scowled, ready to fight, when suddenly Sano’s detectives burst in through the back door. They grabbed the ruffians from behind and wrested away their daggers. Hirata followed, holding captive the samurai who’d run away. The samurai, already relieved of his weapons, struggled in Hirata’s armlock.
“Well, see who we’ve got,” Sano said. Though none of the men fit Lightning’s description, the raid had paid off. “It’s Captain Noguchi, former weapons master at Edo Castle. I’ve been looking for you.”
Captain Noguchi was a rawboned man whose feral, unblinking eyes regarded Sano with hostility. “Tell your lackey to let go of me,” he said.
“What’s the matter, are you afraid to face your punishment for stealing weapons from the Tokugawa armory and giving them to the Black Lotus sect?” Sano said. “Did you think you could hide forever?”
Although most of the surviving Black Lotus members had been captured, some remained at large. Sano headed an ongoing effort to clean up this human scum.
“I was only following the true path of destiny.” Fanaticism shone on Noguchi’s face. “I’m an innocent victim of persecution by you, the evil destroyer who would wipe out all my people and condemn the world to eternal suffering!”
“Spare us the excuses.” Sano noticed a mark on the skin below Noguchi’s collarbone. He yanked open the man’s kimono, revealing scar tissue that didn’t quite obscure a tattooed Black Lotus symbol, and under it, another tattoo of a dragon.
“So you’ve joined the Mori,” Sano said, recognizing the gang’s crest. “Trust you to find another set of hoodlum friends after the Black Lotus sect disbanded. Where is Lightning?”
“I don’t know.” Noguchi viciously spat the words.
Sano shot out a hand, gripped the man’s throat, and squeezed hard. “Has he been here?”
Noguchi squealed in pain and fright. His eyes rolled, and he jerked away from Sano, but Hirata held him in place. Although Sano disliked using violence against witnesses, he had little compunction about coercing this man who’d stolen their lord’s weapons for the massacre at the Black Lotus Temple. Furthermore, Noguchi was his connection to the Mori, and Sano had neither time nor patience to waste.
“Tell me!” he demanded, digging his fingers into Noguchi’s windpipe.
His face purple, Noguchi struggled in Hirata’s grip and gasped for air.
“Have you seen Lightning?” Sano hated abusing his power; yet he could gladly choke the breath out of Noguchi.
Panic shone in Noguchi’s gaze. His voice emerged in a croak: “All right, I’ll tell you. Just please let me go!”
Sano and Hirata released him. He staggered, wheezing and coughing. “Lightning was here yesterday,” he rasped. “He took all the money from the cash box. But no one around here has seen him since. I swear that’s the truth!”
The letter came to Reiko soon after Sano went out to search for Lightning. She opened the bamboo scroll case that a castle messenger had delivered to the estate. The message inside was scrawled on cheap paper. Reiko read:
I’ve found Wisteria. If you want to see her, go to the noodle stand around the corner from the bathhouse, tell someone there to fetch me, and I’ll take you to where she is. Don’t wait too long, or she’ll be gone. And bring the money you promised me.
Yuya
Reiko was thrilled at this sign that Yuya wanted to help her and that Wisteria was alive after all, but suspicion tempered her hope of obtaining news that would benefit Sano. Yesterday, Yuya had seemed so averse to cooperating further that Reiko wondered at the motive behind the message. What had changed Yuya’s mind? Reiko paced swiftly around her chamber, holding the letter, as she debated what to do.
She feared walking into a trap, despite the lack of apparent reason for Yuya to hurt her. Reiko recognized this as a situation where instinct must yield to need, and decided to follow Yuya’s instructions rather than miss any opportunity to gain valuable facts. She had doubts about meeting Wisteria, and she hesitated to go on her own, but she had no time to consult Sano; she didn’t even know where he was, and she couldn’t dally while a chance to save him slipped away.
Reiko called a servant to bring two of Sano’s best detectives to her. Fortunately, they hadn’t yet joined the hunt for Lightning. When Detectives Marume and Fukida came to her, she showed them the message, then said, “Please organize a party of troops and take me to Yuya.”
As the detectives and soldiers escorted her palanquin out of the courtyard, Reiko glimpsed O-hana watching her somberly from the door. Her procession traveled fast through town, and soon Reiko alighted in a neighborhood of slum dwellings that tilted crookedly. A wind with a keen, icy edge blew debris down the street, rattled the buildings, and rippled puddles of sewage. While her entourage waited outside, Reiko entered the noodle stand, a narrow cubbyhole beside a grocer’s shop. There, a slatternly woman stirred boiling pots on a hearth. Children squabbled in a room behind the kitchen.
“I want to see Yuya,” said Reiko.