“What do you mean?”
“We’ve become too logical. Despite what you Westerners think, we Japanese have always been a very emotional people. We cry at poems and think suicide can be beautiful. In the ancient days, the samurai would follow duty and emotion and not logic. We still tend to do that sometimes, but more and more we Japanese are becoming rational creatures of the Western world.” Hirota’s tree limb was now pointing towards the ground. “Three hundred years ago, I’d have killed you just for revenge and then killed myself for failing.”
“But it’s not three hundred years ago.”
“True. More’s the pity. I’m sure my friends from the Nippon Tokkotai have already left. In a remote location like this, it’s going to be easy enough for the police to radio ahead and set up a roadblock, once your girlfriend gets to them. I still have to decide what I’m going to do with myself.” He paused. “And with you.”
“Do you remember the end to Kurosawa’s film Hidden Fortress?” I asked.
He looked at me like I had lost my mind, asking a question about an old samurai movie. Then he understood my point and laughed. “You mean the part where the bad guy captures Toshiro Mifune, but lets him go because that’s the honorable thing to do?”
Bingo. “That’s the part exactly. That movie reflects the Japan you say you love. It recognizes that bushido, the way of the warrior, involves honor and chivalry. Any rivalry between us had nothing to do with you and me personally. I didn’t know who I was competing with to find the treasure, and frankly you weren’t at the top of my list. Our rivalry was over finding that.” I nodded towards the treasure cave. “You had the six blades and I had the technology that you say is ruining Japan. We both got here at the same time. I’d prefer a clear win for technology because that would mean that you wouldn’t be standing here in front of me, but if I get out of this, I’ll be satisfied with a draw.
“Despite your talk of suicide, I think you want to live. It’s occurred to me that it will be a lot easier for you to live if I live, too. The News Pop television show is going to do a special about the blades in a few days, and if you kill me, that special will be all about me. Not because they love me at News Pop, but because it will mean terrific ratings for them. The death of some Mafia Don in New York isn’t a big story in Japan, but killing me while I’m investigating something for News Pop will be big news here. If they capture your companions from the Nippon Tokkotai, as you think they will, even the Japanese police will eventually figure out your involvement. With the pressure from television if I die, it will be a lot harder for you to get away.”
“So I’m supposed to just release you?”
“It’s what happened in Hidden Fortress.”
Hirota laughed. He shook his head. “I must be a fool, letting you talk me into something based on an old samurai movie.” He dropped the tree limb. If Akira Kurosawa, the director of Hidden Fortress, had been there, I’d have kissed him.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“There’s a Japanese tradition of defeated leaders and bandits taking to the mountains. I’m going to see that particular tradition doesn’t die. It’s been an interesting experience meeting you, and some day, assuming we ever see each other again, you’re going to have explain to me all the computer magic you used to find this place.”
Hirota walked past me, moving rapidly towards the forest.
“Hirota!” I shouted just before he entered the woods. He turned to look at me, puzzled. “You were above the entrance of the cave and dropped down on me, hitting me as you hit the ground. That’s why I didn’t see you when I came out of the cave.”
He grinned. “You’re too damn smart. You’ll take the mystery out of life, if you don’t watch it. Then it won’t be fun.”
Rubbing my shoulder, I stood watching while he disappeared into the woods.
29
The brightness of the lights, the ordered confusion of the crew, and the small confines of the News Pop studio were beginning to feel familiar to me. For the last couple of days News Pop had been on an advertising blitz, hyping the show and the discovery of the Toyotomi treasure. The show had gotten considerable press coverage in the Japanese media. So had I.
Mariko and I had been on sightseeing trips to Asakusa, Yokohama, and Kamakura, courtesy of News Pop, and some people recognized me on the street. A few of the braver English-speaking souls even came up and asked me if I was the Sansei detective, and after the first couple of times, I got tired of explaining I wasn’t a detective and I simply said yes. I even signed a couple of autographs! In Los Angeles, I’m a total nobody. Here in Tokyo, the TV show was making me a minor celebrity. It was a weird metamorphosis, made stranger because it happened in just a few days.
Mariko and I were both going to be on the show. The length of the show was extended another thirty minutes as a special on the discovery of the Toyotomi treasure. Because of the composition of that “treasure,” I learned one thing about fame. It doesn’t necessarily mean fortune. Museum experts were talking about trying to restore some of the clothes to put on display, but that restoration process was actually going to cost somebody a lot of money. A treasure that takes money out of people’s pockets is not the kind of treasure that makes its discoverer wealthy.
On the night of the show, the lady who did the makeup for the show finished and left the makeup room. Mariko glanced out the door to make sure she was gone, then hurriedly picked up some blusher and an eyebrow pencil and changed the line of her eyebrows slightly and added a few more highlights to her cheeks. She took a sponge and blended it expertly so that the highlights looked natural. As an actress, she was used to doing her own makeup and she knew the difference between TV makeup, stage makeup, and the kind of makeup people commonly wear every day. I have to say that her little touches did make a definite improvement.
I suppose a real hard-boiled detective at this point would have made some crack about dames always having to look good on camera, but seeing the improvement that Mariko made, I asked her to adjust my makeup, too. She smiled, and with a few quick expert swipes with a sponge and the use of a couple of bottles on the makeup table, she had me looking my best, too.
She finished just in time. As she put the sponge down on the table, Sugimoto appeared at the door to take us to the greenroom. I walked next to Sugimoto and said, “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“After the thugs hit me in the park, you knew about it even though Junko didn’t tell you. How?”
Sugimoto looked puzzled and said, “The producers called me in and yelled at me about it. After Junko told them about the incident and your need to get out of Tokyo, they said it was my responsibility and that I should have walked you back to the hotel or taken you there in a cab. That’s how I knew what was going on.”
“And why did you appear at the village, even though you were supposed to be scouting out the other location in Osaka?”
“I went to Osaka and found out that the center of the map is a housing tract. Even if the treasure had been there, I don’t know how we could have dug up peoples’ houses trying to find it. And to be honest with you, I knew that you had gone with Junko up to the Lake Biwa location. Junko and I have a sort of rivalry going because we both have good language skills and we’re often going after the same kinds of stories. I thought she was trying to do some sneaky trick on me by taking the Lake Biwa site and taking you with her. I decided to tag along and bring a cameraman, too. What I suspected was true and the scouting trip turned into a treasure hunt. I was glad I was there with the cameraman to capture the police action in the mountains after Professor Hirota left you. That’s got to be some of the most exciting footage on tonight’s show. Not to mention the footage we shot with lights inside the cave where the treasure was.”