She shuddered, for the full impact of what had just happened had begun to sink in. The man with the Little Ears had tried to kill them.
‘Kazuo?’
The voice came from behind her, a quiet voice, yet forged with authority. Turning, she found herself face to face with a young Japanese man. He was a head shorter than the big man, wide through the shoulders with no waist to speak of. He wore a black turtleneck sweater, black pants, black soft-soled shoes, and his long black hair tumbled over the sweater at his neck. His brown eyes burned with anxiety.
She froze for a moment, until the big man spoke and she realized he was a friend.
‘Are you okay, pal?’ he said to the big man.
‘Bastard took a piece out of my arm. Was there anybody else?’
‘No, he was operating alone,’ the Japanese said. And then he smiled and raised his eyebrows ‘Maybe I should have backed you up. It did not occur to me that he might be a match for you. He did not look that tough.’
‘A match for me! Bullshit. He was a cheap Street fighter. He got lucky. Oh, by the way, Eliza Gunn, this is Sammi. He followed you while I followed the cheap shot with no ears. It’s known as a double-up.’
She had stopped listening. Instead she was concentrating on the big man’s eyes.
‘One of your eyes changed colour,’ she said to the big man.
‘What?’
‘That eye. That green eye on the right. It used to be gray.’
He turned away from her and Sammi peered intently at the big man.
‘The gods have indeed played a trick,’ Sammi said with mock seriousness. ‘They have changed the colour of your right eye.’
‘Let’s get me to Dr Saiwai,’ the big man said. ‘I need a little repair work.’
But Eliza would not be distracted, She started to laugh. She laughed very hard. ‘Contact lenses,’ she said. ‘You were wearing contact lenses. The cowboy boots must add an inch or so to your height. The contact lenses change the colour of your eyes. The beard and everything ... Kazuo ... hell, you’re O’ Hara!’
V
The doctor’s house was on the outskirts of Kyoto, a dim, black one-story outline against the gray silhouette of Mount Hiei, which soared up behind it, less than two miles away. O’Hara and Sammi were gone less than fifteen minutes. When they came out, O’Hara had his hand stuffed in his pocket.
‘No big thing,’ he told her. ‘Twelve stitches, but the cut isn’t very deep. That bastard ruined my jacket.’
‘Tana will fix it. Nobody will even know,’ said Sammi.
‘Who’s Tana?’ Eliza asked.
‘Friend of the family,’ said O’Hara.
They drove back to Osaka, parked the car and walked to the nomiya, the sake bar, across from her hotel. It was a delicate place, dark and quiet, and after leaving their shoes near the door, they found a small booth near the back.
‘1 will call Tokenrui-san and tell him it went well. He’ll be worried,’ Sammi said and left the stall.
‘Is that Mr Kimura’?’ Eliza asked.
O’Hara nodded. He was looking at her hard with his green eyes, then he suddenly smiled for the first time and she began to feel warm. She took off her coat.
‘You got quite a bite there, pal,’ he said.
‘We can thank my dentist in Nebraska for that.’
‘Nebraska, hunh?’
‘Yep. Webster Groves high school, then the University of Missouri, then Boston, via Chicago. That’s the story of my life. Not much to it. Nothing like yours. Does this kind of thing happen often?’
‘Only when ,I get mixed up with television reporters that bite.’
She smiled at him across the table. ‘Cute,’ she said.
She had one hell of a smile. If ever a smile could be called ear-to-ear, it was that one.
‘What does that word mean?’ she asked.
‘What, “cute”?’
‘No, silly. Token ... whatever.’
‘Tokenrui-san?’
‘Right.’
‘Literally, token means “swords.” But in this case it’s interpreted to mean “the Master.”
‘Do you really think of him as your Master?’
‘Not the way you mean. In the aesthetic sense.’
‘You mean like a teacher?’
‘That’s part of it. He is the Master of higaru-dashi, which is kind of a. . . combination advanced karate, Shinto and Zen. It’s difficult to describe in English. The words are misleading. Anyway, Kimura makes the final choice on everyone who enters the seventh level of the higaru-dashi. What’s known as the Plane of the Beyond.’
‘It sounds way beyond me.’
‘Only because you take the words literally. In Japan, nothing is obvious.’
‘He tells me you can stand on one foot for six hours without blinking an eye. Is that what you call the Plane of the Beyond?’
‘No,’ he said and smiled again, ‘it’s what I call painful.’ The waitress appeared. ‘Osake o ippai onegai shimasu,’ O’Hara said, and she nodded and left. ‘I ordered us sake,’ he explained to Eliza, ‘I think we can all use it.’
‘You seem very much at ease here in Japan.’
‘It’s my home.’
‘That mean you’ve given up on the States?’
He made a vague gesture, which he did not bother to explain.
‘And these people helped you just because they’re your friends?’
‘Is there a better reason?’
‘But it was dangerous.’
‘I was in trouble. A year on the dodge is a long time. Besides, the Winter Man tried to dishonour me. That was unspeakable to Kimura. And to Sammi. Here, a person’s honour is sacred. To steal it is like stealing your soul. It’s a despicable act.’
The waitress and Sammi both returned at the same time. They raised their warm cups in a mutual toast and sipped the hot rice liquor.
‘Tell me more about Kimura. . . Tokenrui-san? Does Kimura still teach? I mean, he seems so old. How old is he?’
‘Sammi?’
Sammi said, ‘Nana-ju-ni.’
‘Seventy-two,’ O’Hara said.
‘And he’s still active?’
‘He would never have taken that cut, tonight, you can bet on that. I’ll hear about it, too, all right, letting that dipshit get his blade into me.’
‘You were not prepared. Your head was with the fleas,’ Sammi said. ‘Your first two moves were an inch too wide.’
‘Yeah. I knew that when I felt his knife in my shoulder.’
‘And Kimura is faster than you?’ Eliza asked.
‘It is not the speed, it is the mind,’ Sammi said.
‘Tokenrui-san can catch a hummingbird in flight,’ said O’Hara. ‘The move is so fast, you don’t see it, you just feel the wind, from his arm moving. That wind is called okinshiwa, and it has different meanings to different people. To you, the wind could mean confusion; to me, because I am his friend, it can mean security. To his enemies, it can mean danger.’
‘And then he opens his hand,’ Sammi said, holding his arm out and unfolding his fist, ‘and the bird sits there and waits for him to blow on its tail and make it fly away.’
‘That’s the mystic part of it,’ said O’Hara. ‘When I understand that, I will feel that I have achieved the Plane of the Beyond.’
‘It’s all very difficult...’
‘That’s because it requires a different kind of thinking than you’re accustomed to. Kimura changed my life.. . no, he saved my life. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably be a headhunting punk like Little Ears.’
‘Doesn’t it seem strange,’ she said, ‘just a few years ago we were all at war. Was he involved in that?’
‘Involved?’ Sammi laughed. ‘I suppose you could say that.’
O’Hara said, ‘He hand-picked the officers — and this is the top staff of the Imperial Army we’re talking about — who were to enter the seventh level of higaru-dashi. He only selected twelve. They were with him for three years before they returned to duty — in 1942. Every one of them was a key man in the Japanese war machine.’