The Japanese Corpse (6 page)

Yet, in the war the Japanese had pushed it too far. So they were capable of overdoing it. Capable of killing a fellow countryman in a car on the highway. Squeezing the trigger of some automatic weapon at a few feet from the victim's head, maybe no more than one foot. They might even have pushed the muzzle against the unfortunate man's head. He saw the flash of the old movie again, the wicked Japanese criminal, sitting behind a large desk, pressing his thin fingers together and glinting through his spectacles while he ordered one of his henchman to dispose of an enemy. Maybe the Japanese were also very obedient and therefore dangerous. Dutch criminals argue with their bosses and shout and use rough language and refuse to do as they are told, so Dutch crime is not too violent, and certainly not sinister, not very often anyway.

The girl was at his side. "Please follow me," she said in an odd mixture of Dutch and English. "The manager and his wife expect you in the special room upstairs." Grijpstra frowned. His English wasn't too good, although he had sweated on the language for his police examination. He knew enough words but he had difficulty in combining them into proper sentences and he knew his accent was so heavy that foreigners found it hard to understand him. With Japanese it might be even worse. The commissaris should have sent de Gier, whose English was fairly fluent, for de Gier had spent some time in London, and had once gone as far as Cornwall, where he assisted the British police in arresting a Dutchman who had been spending a few hundred thousand guilders in stolen checks and securities. Grijpstra grunted. The commissaris often directed his men to get into situations to which they weren't fitted. The old man did it on purpose.

Grijpstra got up and followed the girl. He thought of a theory that a criminologist had elaborated once, during an evening's lecture for police officers. Man is incapable of doing things on purpose, the tall cadaverous-looking expert had stated, smiling at his audience as if he were begging their pardon. Things happen, that's all, and man tries, frantically, to adjust to whatever is happening to him. Grijpstra had agreed that night, but he had modified his agreement later. Some men can create a situation, do things on purpose, deliberately plan a course of events. The commissaris could do it; he didn't always do it, but he could push the line of cause and effect and force it into another direction. And although such an activity was admirable and curious, it wasn't always pleasant. It twisted other men, especially the men who were working with the commissaris. Maybe it improved them.

Grijpstra sighed. He didn't particularly want to improve. Still, he refused a transfer to a much easier job. He could have been assisting the officers responsible for police vehicles and garages now. A nine-to-five job with good holidays that couldn't be upset, for vehicles break down with a monotonous rhythm and their behavior can be caught in rules. Crime is a jumpy affair, here today, nowhere next week, and then continuous for several weeks with all sorts of sudden twists. He hadn't taken the easy job. Too weak, he thought, too weak to get out of the groove. Too weak to ask for a divorce too. He badly wanted a divorce and the chance of moving into a quiet room somewhere, a room without a screaming TV and a fat woman padding about on large swollen feet. But he still had small children, and he felt he had to stay with them. For another ten years perhaps. Ten long aggravating years that would make him deaf and give him ulcers. He shuddered.

The special room was even better than the quiet elegant restaurant downstairs. The girl had knelt down and was unlacing his boots. Grijpstra stood on one leg, holding on to a post that was a bare tree, stripped of its bark. There was another post like that in the room, flanking an opening in the wall, like an open cupboard. Its back wall was white and a scroll had been hung that dominated the bit of empty space. A single flower in a narrow vase decorated the lower part of the niche. Grijpstra looked at the scroll, six Chinese characters, the first three identical.

"Do you like the scroll?" a soft voice asked. He looked down into a smiling face. A Japanese woman, some forty years old, the smile brought out her buck teeth, filled with an abundance of gold. She spoke English as he had expected. This woman was also dressed in a kimono, but the color was more sedate than its counterpart in the restaurant. The cold politeness of the smile softened somewhat when she noticed Grijpstra's discomfort. There was a small hole in his left sock and a toe peeped through; he was trying to hide it with his other foot.

"Sit down, please," the lady said, pointing at a low table. There were three cushions on the floor, which was made of thick mats, each mat six-by-two feet and bordered with a strip of printed cotton showing a simple flower motive. "Tatamis," she said. "We imported the mats from my country, like everything else in this room. In the restaurant we worked with local materials but here everything is true Japanese."

There was a quiet pride in her voice and Grijpstra was impressed. "Very beautiful," he said and she smiled again, the smile still softening.

He lowered himself till his knees came to rest on the cushion. He felt the mat under the cushion, it was springy. "Nice and bouncy," he said.

She nodded. "In my country everybody lives on these mats, they are the right size for sleeping, see?" She pointed at the mat next to Grijpstra's cushion and when she saw that he didn't understand, quickly dropped to the floor and stretched out, folding her hands under her head and closing her eyes. She made a snoring sound and Grijpstra laughed.

She got up and her eyes twinkled. "My husband is in the kitchen," she said, and made a gesture at the girl who had come in holding a tray with two beer bottles and glasses. The girl knelt in one smooth movement and put the tray on the table. She raised herself again and left the room, kneeling at the door, sliding it open, and shuffling quickly through it.

Grijpstra had watched the girl and turned to his hostess. "They always go through doors like that?" he asked.

"It is the custom, but modern Japanese girls often forget to do it now," she said, and opened a bottle, pouring the beer carefully into his glass. He did the same for her and they held the glasses up and drank.

He wiped his mouth and mustache. "What does that mean?" he asked, pointing at the scroll in the niche.

She smiled again, and the smile wasn't as ugly as before; he was getting used to her teeth. She had evidently warmed up to him and there was less formality in their contact. "A poem," she said, "a Chinese poem, it says
Step step step, the fresh morning breeze.
"

Grijpstra repeated the words. He liked the sound and tried to feel the meaning. She was looking at him over her glass.

"You climb some steps and enjoy the cool wind?" he asked.

"Could be," she said, and swallowed. "Could be something else."

"Hmm," Grijpstra said, and felt for his cigars. She leaned over and flicked a lighter. "Step step step," Grijpstra said, "like moving slowly, enjoying every step."

She nodded. "Yes, like that. You looked at the menu?"

Grijpstra grinned. "I did but I did not understand."

"Shall I recommend something?"

"Please. Maybe it could have a raw fish in it. I saw one of your men cutting up a fish at the bar."

"Sushi," she said. "We could try a platter of assorted sushi and have some soup with it. Are you very hungry?"

"It's a hot evening, maybe I am not so hungry, but the fresh fish would be nice."

She called and the girl came in, kneeling at the door, waiting for the order. The lady spoke in Japanese and the girl said "Hai hai" in a high voice and left.

"'Hai' means "yes'?" Grijpstra asked.

She shook her head as if in doubt. "Not quite. It means 'I am here, at your service.'"

"And will do as I am told," Grijpstra said.

She tittered. "Yes, like that, but then they often do something entirely different."

"Not bring the fish?" Grijpstra asked, and looked worried.

She laughed and bent over and touched his shoulder. "No, she will bring the fish. You really fancy the fish, don't you?"

He had brought out his notebook and looked serious again. "I am a police detective," he said, and took a visiting card out of his notebook. "There are some questions; I hope you don't mind."

The head with the elaborate hairdo dressing the jet-black thick strands into an intricate knot, bobbed. "Yes, my name is Mrs. Fujitani. My husband and I manage this restaurant. He will be up in a few minutes, but there is a special dish to prepare and he can't leave it alone just now. I assume that you are inquiring into Joanne Andrews' complaint about her missing fianceT'

"Yes, madam," Grijpstra said. She spelled her name and he carefully wrote it down.

"Perhaps nothing is the matter," Mrs. Fujitani said hopefully. "Perhaps Mr. Nagai is enjoying himself somewhere and will show up soon."

"We thought so too," Grijpstra said, "but we don't anymore. We found his car, you see, and there is blood in the car and a fragment of human skull with black hair attached to it. Somebody was shot in the car."

He looked at her carefully. The fright reaction seemed genuine. He didn't think Mrs. Fujitani expected the man to be dead. Her eyes were staring at him, she had sucked in her breath sharply and her hands were clasping each other with such force that the knuckles showed white centers.

"Do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill Mr. Nagai?" Grijpstra asked gently.

"So that's why Joanne didn't show up today," Mrs. Fujitani said. "I telephoned her landlady. She said Joanne had been nervous the last few days, very nervous."

Grijpstra repeated his question. She shook her head, but there were tears in the small dark eyes.

"Did you like Mr. Nagai?"

She nodded. "Yes, he was such a nice quiet man. Once, a year ago, I think, he drank too much in the restaurant here and bothered people. You know, went up to their tables and tried to talk to them. My husband had to show him the door but he didn't make a fuss. He just went and then he didn't dare to come here again. I went to his hotel and he was almost crying with embarrassment."

"Did he come back again?" Grijpstra asked.

"Yes. He brought me flowers and he gave us a little statue, very valuable, I believe. It's over there."

She pointed at a low lacquered table. Grijpstra got up from his cushions, rubbed his legs which had gone to sleep under him and stumbled toward the table. The statue depicted a stocky old man with a large bald head, bushy eyebrows which pointed aggressively forward and enormous eyes, bulging ferociously. The small, hunched-up body seemed to exhale tremendous strength. "Hey," Grijpstra said, and stepped back.

Mrs. Fujitani giggled. "Daruma-san," she said, "the first Zen master, very powerful."

"A priest?" Grijpstra asked doubtfully. "Aren't priests supposed to look holy?"

"Very holy," Mrs. Fujitani said, and bowed reverently toward the statue. "Daruma means 'teaching,' san means 'mister, Mister Teaching.'"

"So what did he teach?" Grijpstra asked, looking at the fury on the old man's face.

"Buddhism," Mrs. Fujitani said. "But I don't know about Buddhism. My husband and I are Christians, Methodists, but I like to look at this statue. It was very good of Mr. Nagai to give it to us; it is the center of this room now."

The girl brought in a large tray with the sushi, and Grijpstra was told how to mix a sauce in a small dish and dip the raw fish and rice into the dish, using chopsticks. He had no trouble with the chopsticks; he had used them many times before, in the cheap Chinese restaurants of the old city. After the sushi she offered a bowl of hot noodles topped with fried vegetables and poured sake, the Japanese rice wine, from a small heated bottle.

Mr. Fujitani came in twice, but excused himself each time after a few minutes. The restaurant had filled up and he was kept busy behind the counter, preparing special dishes and supervising. He was a small man, in his forties, glancing nervously through his steamed-up spectacles.

"Very good girl," he kept on saying when Grijpstra questioned him about Joanne Andrews. "She won't come back, you think? Very good hostess, quiet and efficient." He spoke quickly, firing the words as if from a gun, and keeping the tone of his voice on the same high pitch.

"No," Grijpstra said. "I don't think she will come back. She is very unhappy about the death of her boyfriend. She seems sure that he has been killed, although so far we haven't found his body yet. Who would want to kill him, do you think, Mr. Fujitani?"

But Mr. Fujitani only bowed and said "Saaaaah," shaking his head and looking utterly bewildered.

"When did you see Mr. Nagai last?"

But Mr. Fujitani went on saying "Saaaaah" and shaking his head.

Grijpstra looked at Mrs. Fujitani, but she was imitating her husband's behavior. They looked like two toys, moved by clockwork.

"Try to remember," Grijpstra said gently.

"No," Mrs. Fujitani said. "I don't know. Some days ago, I think, he came in here, but we are always so busy and so short of staff and the food takes so much time to prepare and there are only two young boys in the kitchen for the washing up and they never catch up so we have to help out. Many Japanese come here, we know most of them and we say a few words but then we forget again. Too much work."

"Yes," Grijpstra said. He was thinking of the drug-brigade detectives who would be having a lot of Japanese meals soon, while they looked for the Dutch and Japanese ship's officers Joanne Andrews would have described to them. They would have to set some sort of trap to catch the heroin smugglers. He wondered what detectives would be chosen, wishing he could be one of them. The food was excellent, he thought, as he looked at his bowl, fishing out a large mushroom with his lacquered chopsticks.

One of the serving girls came in, speaking rapidly to Mrs. Fujitani.

"You have a telephone call," she said. "Will you take it in here?"

"Please," Grijpstra said, and took the telephone, which she had taken from a side table, pushing one of its buttons for him.

"De Gier," the voice said. "How is the food? Enjoying yourself?"