Floating City (8 page)

A few snowy-haired old men were at the shrine, soldiers no doubt, dreaming of the war and their part in it, remembering compatriots who were no longer with them. Ushiba ground his cigarette beneath his heel, then stood beside them. He rang the bell to wake the
kami
of the shrine, then clapped his hands twice, bowing his head in prayer.

He dropped some money between the red wooden slats of the collection box, then he went to the nearby building. It appeared closed for repairs because signs were up and uniformed workmen were scuttling all around it. On closer inspection, however, it was clear that these were no workmen.

One of them, the largest of the lot, glowered at Ushiba before recognizing him. Then he bowed deferentially, took up some tools, and stepped aside.

Ushiba went into the building, which was a museum commemorating the kamikaze dead. Tattered flags, banners, and hurried poems written in the blood of the heroes of the war adorned the walls, all of them carefully annotated.

And Ushiba, overcome with emotion, recalled a haiku:

The wind brings enough
of fallen leaves
To make a fire

One man was in the museum, tall, almost gangly, so thin his wrist bones were knobs. He turned when he heard Ushiba, and a slow smile spread across his face. This was Tetsuo Akinaga,
oyabun
of the Shikei clan, and the third member of the Kaisho’s inner council, which included Akira Chosa and Tachi Shidare, Tomoo Kozo’s successor. Not coincidentally, these were also the
oyabun
who had helped build the Godaishu with Mikio Okami. Since the Kaisho’s ouster, Ushiba’s role, it seemed, had expanded from adviser to full-fledged council member.

“A fitting place for us to meet, eh, Daijin?”

“Indeed.”

Akinaga had the right to call him by name, but the
oyabun
seemed to feel more comfortable using titles rather than names. Ushiba privately believed it helped Akinaga delineate in his mind the tangled webs of power that came together whenever the members of the Godaishu met.

He had steel gray hair that he kept unfashionably long, pulled back in the style of the old samurai. His flat cheeks and stubby, flat nose made his deep-set eyes even more startling. Like Chosa, he was in his late fifties, but he seemed older. Age and, Ushiba suspected, the compromises of power had turned the corners of his mouth down so that he appeared perpetually disapproving of whatever came to pass. He was a man who had seen the turn of the knife blade from foe to friend and therefore knew there was no substantive difference between the two.

“The quality of the silence here is extraordinary,” Akinaga said. “Like the hush that comes over the countryside just at sunset.” He laughed. “I fear I am becoming quite poetical in my old age.”

Ushiba, feeling the fire in his belly, understood. He knew that whatever solace was left him now came from the often startlingly juxtaposed imagery of his beloved haiku. And, of course, from what the Godaishu was about to execute.

The two men walked beneath the banners of the fallen heroes, feeling the weight and obligation of that most ambivalent of Japanese concepts, the nobility of failure.

“I have a great deal of respect for you, Daijin.” Akinaga nodded his head. “Six months ago you informed me that you would be able to reverse the stock market slide. That was good news for me because many of the banks I control are heavily invested in Nikkei stocks. But the truth is I did not believe you. Government manipulation is one thing, but what you have done since then is nothing short of a miracle. In that time, the Nikkei has risen five thousand points. My banks’ books are in some semblance of restoration; there is order out of chaos.”

“It has not been easy, I admit,” Ushiba said, “and there is a great deal of peril in the government’s pouring so much of its pension-plan money into stocks in order to increase share demand and raise prices. We’ve directed a number of rumors to run the price up on several large issues that were particularly sick. Also, we’ve had a lot of pressure for blocking all the new equity offerings for the past six months. Of course, we needed to do all this; the less amount of shares floating, the bigger the demand must be.”

“And it’s worked to perfection.”

“But once again it’s artificial, like the real estate boom we created. Our manipulations may have a serious downside none of us can see at the moment.”

Akinaga smiled. “History is on your side, Daijin. I have faith that the market will not buckle. I’m convinced that we have seen the lows and are now firmly on our way out of our recession.”

Brought together by their profound appreciation of the past, the two men were reluctant to begin their painful business together. They lived simultaneously in the past and in the future. For them, the present was insubstantial, existing solely as a bridge from one reality to the other.

“The question I have raised in council and will continue to do,” Akinaga said at length, “is whether we can trust this other Mafia
oyabun.
The American mob is in serious decline. The sense of honor and tradition that made then-bosses accessible to us has been seriously undermined by those willing to turn state’s evidence because of revenge, frustration, or because they are soft.”

Ushiba nodded. “We must deal with Caesare Leonforte now. He’s a hothead; he does not possess the cool, calculating mind of the brilliant don Dominic Goldoni. But, as we see it, that is to our advantage. We tried but could not control Goldoni—neither, it seems, could the representatives of the American government with whom he was supposedly working.”

Akinaga appeared unimpressed. “What troubles me is not merely Leonforte but the number of unreliable and therefore dangerous individuals with whom we are obliged to deal in order to make the Godaishu work. The Mafia, the elements within the American government, even our longtime connection in Vietnam—these
iteki
make me nervous because we don’t fully understand them in the way that Okami did.”

Akinaga shook his head. “Even worse for us, Chosa doesn’t see the terrible risks we are taking to attain our goal. His eyes are closed to the possibility of destruction—the horrible holocaust that might result from an error in judgment among people who are essentially alien to one another.”

Akinaga’s face darkened and the interior was abruptly filled with menace. “My worst fears have been realized. Chosa has become too close to the Americans. These
iteki
have no idea of our goals—their sole concern is money, the tons of it the Godaishu is reaping on every continent. They are mercenaries without honor or ideology. Even a momentary lapse could cause them to turn on us like rabid dogs.”

“And yet consider what we have just gone through,” Ushiba said. “The unthinkable almost happened when Okami and Goldoni betrayed us. But you have seen for yourself the safeguards we have put in place. Goldoni is dead and Okami has disappeared. There is no need for concern. We are on course toward our glorious destiny.”

“Of course they were neutralized,” Akinaga said sharply. “I saw to it. Okami was far too dangerous. He possessed
koryoku
—the Illuminating Power.”

Ushiba, stunned that first Chosa and now Akinaga were taking credit for the plot to murder the Kaisho, managed to restore his equilibrium in time to say,
“Koryoku,
I’ve never heard of it.”

“I’m hardly surprised.” Akinaga put his hands behind his back, giving him the aspect of a professor. “I only learned of it by accident, overhearing Okami speak of it one day long ago. I did some subsequent research. It is a kind of deep meditation, and yet it must be much more—how shall I say it, a kind of second sight which allows the practitioner to achieve a synthesis of motive, intent, and intuition that creates its own opportunity. In one as clever and as ambitious as Okami it became a strategic edge. I’m convinced
koryoku
is what allowed Okami to operate with the Mafia don Goldoni for so long without our knowing.”

“This
koryoku
would explain much of Okami’s power and influence. After all, he’s over ninety now.”

Akinaga screwed up his eyes. “But what were he and Goldoni up to? We’ve put our best agents into the field in order to find the answer, with no success.”

At last Ushiba found himself on familiar ground; this had been a most disconcerting meeting so far. Akinaga had been busy condemning Chosa, and he, Ushiba, had found no sound rebuttal. “Perhaps they have been looking in the wrong places.”

Akinaga was brought up short. He was not a man who tolerated failure. “What precisely do you mean, Daijin?”

“I have learned that Okami discovered your plot to assassinate him. In response, he sought the aid of Nicholas Linnear.”

Akinaga’s hand cut the air in a gesture of disgust. “Nonsense. Linnear’s antipathy toward Yakuza is beyond debate. Where on earth did you hear this fairy tale?”

“From Akira Chosa. And before you reject the theory outright, I urge you to consider—it could very well be true. The history of Japan teaches us that the espousal of enmity is the best cover for friendship,
neh?”
The living truth of that statement was, for Ushiba, a guiding example of how the past inflected the present.

“Perhaps,” Akinaga said, clearly unconvinced, “but the enmity Chosa harbors toward Linnear is well documented. It is clearly to his benefit to put forward this theory. That way, even if he is wrong, he will have his revenge on Linnear.”

Ushiba, seeing in the days since the Kaisho disappeared disunity beginning among the members of the inner council, struggled to continue his role of peacemaker. “While no one, least of all Chosa, will deny his hatred of Linnear, I have brought your charge to him myself and he has denied it outright. Besides, if Linnear’s enmity toward the Yakuza were genuine, what was he doing last month in Venice, where Okami has his headquarters?”

As Ushiba had foreseen, this revelation brought Akinaga to silence. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll accept this judgment for now. But I warn you, Ushiba, I do not stand idly by and allow Chosa his personal revenge. Linnear needs to be dealt with, on that I agree, because he alone has it within his means to destroy the Godaishu.

“But I have no illusions about Linnear. I am aware of his strengths. My father knew Colonel Linnear in the terrible years after our defeat. More than once the two of them called upon each other in difficult circumstances. I, myself, recall the Colonel with a great deal of affection. I remember his funeral well. It was the first and only time I saw my father shed a tear. No one else saw. He wore dark glasses and it was only because I stood at his side that I was aware of the depth of his feeling.”

Akinaga, gazing at the bloody banners of the kamikaze hanging over their heads, gave a little smile. “But I know that the son is not the father. The Colonel understood the expediency of elasticizing the codes of American law, but I question whether Nicholas Linnear would be able to do the same. His is a rigid code of honor. If he had been a seventeenth-century samurai, I believe that he would refuse to hire ninja to circumvent the laws of Bushido. He would have perished in the political imperatives of infighting.”

“Still, I would urge extreme caution with Linnear,” Ushiba said. “There are stories that he is even more powerful than we believe. Stirring up a Demon Spider from slumber is not usually the best strategy. At this crucial time when the Godaishu is in its final phase of consolidating its power, it would be better to do nothing to arouse his suspicions.”

“Perhaps. But when I hear arguments such as yours, Daijin, I am reminded of the hero Yoshitoshi, who set out to destroy the great Demon Spider that had slain nine thousand and ninety heroic men. When he found the hideous monster, it was sick and in pain because of the many wounds it had suffered at the hands of these heroes. It was incapable of defending its nest where its young lay sleeping.” His eyes, now seeming even more sunken into his face, were sad. “The truth isn’t always as we perceive it or wish it to be, Daijin.”

Ushiba nodded, thinking of Chosa’s promise that he had found Linnear’s Achilles’ heel. “Yes. I suppose even Demon Spiders can be destroyed.” He gazed upward at the bloody banners of the kamikaze and thought again of the Demon Spider and his brood. Akinaga had meant the myth to be illustrative of Nicholas Linnear, but Ushiba suspected that it could equally exemplify his father, Colonel Linnear. Nicholas Linnear had within him the true nature of the legendary Japanese hero, a moral center holding fast in the face of overwhelming odds.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Ushiba drew his shoulders up, trying to warm himself. He would have loved a heavier coat, but he was determined not to show signs of weakness among these jackals. To do so would surely undermine his complex position of counselor with them. “Akinaga-san, I spend half my days with the
iteki
Americans so I can say with an authority you lack that I cannot respect them. Unlike Chosa, I see their culture as a corruptive influence on Japan. But Nicholas Linnear is no
iteki.
In fact, I am convinced that he is not like other men. Chosa does not understand this.”

“Huh, Chosa.” Akinaga made a face as if being offered spoiled fish. “I think he aspires to ascend to the Kaisho’s throne even while he so artfully argues that the very idea of Kaisho is unacceptable since it puts too much power in the hands of one individual. I don’t approve of his rashness, but I can certainly understand it. Imagine the stature of the man who destroyed Nicholas Linnear. I see this excuse to destroy Linnear as another attempt on Chosa’s part to gain influence over the rest of us.”

So Akinaga did not see the danger in involving Nicholas Linnear either. Like Chosa, he was too wrapped up in the personal maneuvering for power among the remaining
oyabun
of the inner council to consider the long-term ramifications of another abortive attempt on Linnear’s life. Ushiba was abruptly weary of the constant infighting between these
oyabun.
How he missed the Kaisho, who, whatever his faults, had kept them united and equal. Since Mikio Okami’s disappearance, it seemed every issue was viewed in terms of how it would impact the individual members of the council. Still Ushiba was surprised that he missed Okami, someone who, just months ago, he had wanted out of office.