And not a breath of wind.
“Brothers.” Jimen looked around the room. “The Gentleman thanks you all for coming.”
As one, the lieutenants covered their fists and bowed. The Gentleman nodded in return, saying nothing.
“Why are you here?” Jimen asked.
Uncertain glances flickering amongst the yakuza. No one made a sound.
The Gentleman waited a long, silent moment, breathing slow, the mournful notes of the duet drifting in the air like the scent of old chi.
He clapped his hands.
Half a dozen serving girls slipped into the room, charcoal eyes downcast, painted faces pale as the hungry dead. Pink kimonos, drum bows the color of rain clouds at their waists, tiny steps as quiet as smoke. Delicate hands laid two rice-paper bundles before each lieutenant. The packages were long and cylindrical, arranged on the place settings with all the precision of a tea ceremony. When they were done, the girls bowed as one to the Gentleman, then scuttled from the room with eyes still on the floor.
“Open them,” Jimen said.
The room was filled with the whisper of tearing paper, translucent strips fluttering to the ground. When he was done, Seimi stared down at the gifts before him. The thicker package contained a tantō in a short, lacquered sheath, mother-of-pearl inlays gleaming on the hilt. The second gift was a six-inch iron file: sawtoothed and thoroughly ordinary.
“Each of you has failed our oyabun.” Jimen stared around the room, not a hint of anger in his voice. “Each of you has been robbed by these gutter-thieves who plague us. Each of you will now be given the opportunity to atone.”
The Gentleman said nothing. Simply folded his arms and waited, patient as a glacier.
Seimi and Hida glanced at each other, then picked up their napkins. The other lieutenants followed suit, using the snow-white cloth to tie a tight knot around the top knuckle of their left-most fingers. Several were already missing the tips of their smallest digits and were forced to tie the knot at the second knuckle. Seimi unsheathed the tantō, watched his fingernail turning purple. The lieutenants filled the room with the ring of drawn blades.
All save one.
“Nakai-san.” Jimen aimed a cold stare in one man’s direction. “You falter?”
The other yakuza looked at Nakai. He was a few years older than the rest, graying hair swept into a thin topknot. His ink was faded with the slow press of time, blacks running to blue. A knot of lean muscle, bloodshot eyes and a slightly gray hue to his skin telling his fellows that he’d been hitting the smoke a little too hard recently. He stared at his left hand, at the empty knuckle where his little finger should have been, the ring finger already missing its first joint. He held it up to the Gentleman, blinking over severed digits.
“Oyabun,” he said. “My sword grip will be ruined.”
“Why do you need a sword?” Jimen raised an eyebrow. “In a room full of your kin?”
“Not here.” He nodded toward the window. “Out there.”
“On the street?”
“Hai.”
“The streets where children play in shadows they once feared? Where two guttersnipes are enough to see a lieutenant of the Scorpion Children hand over his iron, then tuck tail and run? Those streets, Nakai-san?”
“You do not speak to me that way,” Nakai spat. “You’re a godsdamned accountant. A book-monger. You know less than nothing about life in this city.”
“I know you shame yourself now.” The little man’s voice was soft. Dangerous. “Just as you shamed yourself when you handed over our coin to children.”
“They had an iron-thrower. What was I supposed to—”
The Gentleman hardly seemed to move at all. Nakai paused midsentence, staring like a half-wit at the tantō handle protruding from his chest, the thin line of blood running down his belly. He sucked in a shuddering breath, coughed scarlet. Clutching the hilt, he gurgled and slumped forward onto the table. Blood leaked across polished wood. The smell of urine mingled with sweat and smoke.
“You were supposed to do that, Nakai-san.” The Gentleman wiped already-spotless hands on his napkin. “Something like that would have served you well indeed.”
Nakai twitched once and was still.
“Know that I am not ashamed of any of you.” The Gentleman glanced around the room. “But I tell you truly that I have never been less proud.”
Seimi slapped his hand onto his dinner plate, fingers spread. With a single fluid motion, he sliced his little finger clean through at the top knuckle. The others around him followed suit, each removing a segment from their smallest digit. The blood upon their plates was bright, almost gaudy. Pale chunks of bloodless meat remained behind as each yakuza elevated their wounded hand, wrapped the napkin over their severed digit, curled their fingers into fists. Seimi looked down at the plate, noted his fingernail wasn’t purple anymore.
The Gentleman nodded once, lifted a saké bottle from the warming tray and poured himself a shot. He raised his cup, waited until each lieutenant had done the same. He looked each one in the eye.
“Scorpion Children!” he barked.
“Scorpion Children!” Six shouts in return.
The Gentleman and his crew threw back the liquor, returned their cups to their proper place. Several shared uneasy glances, but none seemed eager to speak. Finally, Hida growled, picked up the iron file and held it out to his oyabun.
The Gentleman smiled at him. “Hida?”
The Gentleman never smiled.
“Why?” Hida looked from his oyabun to the iron file and back again.
“A hound. A hound to set upon thieves, brother.”
“How do they know where we’re moving coin?” Seimi kept the pain of his wounded hand from his voice, gritting the yellow ruin he called teeth. “We follow no set route, yet they’ve hit us four nights running.”
“They don’t strike the stash houses.” A pock-faced lump called Bao spoke. “They hit us when we move. They ambush, like the jade adder. Like the pit spider.”
“Someone inside?” The female lieutenant, Geisu, voiced the ugly thought every man was afraid to speak. “A traitor?”
“Impossible,” came the muttered replies. “Unthinkable.”
“Then how are they doing it?” Seimi slapped his good hand onto the wood.
The room descended into brief clamor, each man offering his own theory. The Gentleman’s voice cut through the noise like a tantō through knuckle.
“We can ask them when we catch them.”
“How?” Hida still held the file in his fist, still stared at his oyabun.
“Footprints in the snow, my brother.”
The Gentleman smiled again.
“Footprints in the snow.”
27
A MOUNTAIN OF BONES
The blood on Daichi’s lips was a bubbling lather, pink as the hyacinths on the western rises. Shuddering groans running the length of him, froth bubbling from his nostrils as his pulse grew dim and the light in his eyes dimmer still.
Old Mari cut the straps of his crumpled breastplate, peeled the iron away and sliced his uwagi open, the flesh beneath already bruised, collarbone to belly. Her hands were flecked with blood, hair a bedraggled mess about her face, yelling at the Kagé onlookers with a shrill, shaking voice.
“If you’re not in here helping, get out of the bloody room!” She whirled on a younger girl. “Suki, fetch more lanterns from next door. Eiko, we need boiling water, I don’t care how, but get it fast. And somebody get me some lotus, for Amaterasu’s sake!”
Daichi drew his legs up as the pain overtook him. He coughed, bloody foam spattering the air. The wound was lung-deep, and Mari knew there was little they could do. Several men held Daichi down as she leaned in close, pressing at his ribs, feeling bone shift and pop, cursing again for more light.