Zen Attitude (25 page)

“Stay calm,” the announcer screamed into a bull-horn. “No archer on the field has shot any arrows. The arrows have come from somewhere else. Please stay calm!”

I wasn’t sticking around to find out who the shooter was. I kicked off my treacherous sandals and merged into the crowd. I ran blindly, passing the panicked majority and the concession stands, wanting to get off the shrine grounds and to a place where there were no flying arrows.

“Run, Forrest Gump! Run!” Angus Glendinning called as I whizzed past his position near the Asahi beer booth. I didn’t pause, but in my peripheral vision I saw Hugh drop his arm from around Winnie’s shoulders. So he’d recognized me.

I was no longer concerned about his new romance. Was the archer behind me? I didn’t want to look when I heard someone running behind me. I withdrew all the things Akemi had taught me about pacing and sprinted as fast as I could along the path where the
rikisha
had traveled.

I would have made it if my bare foot hadn’t landed on nettles. In the second I paused, a body slammed into me.

“Your stride is ex—ex—excellent.” Hugh was panting hard.

“Get off me before it’s too late,” I pleaded from my position underneath him.

“What a coincidence that you’re at the festival! Now I know why Angus was so bent on coming here.” Hugh’s short breaths landed on the back of my neck like small explosions.

“Okay, you found me. Go back and hold hands with Winnie.” I twisted, trying to get him off me.

“You’re blowing things out of proportion! I only had my arm around her to keep from getting separated in the crowd. She’s like an older sister to me.” Hugh wouldn’t let go.

I bucked sharply underneath him, causing him to groan and grab for his groin. I hadn’t hurt him badly, just enough to help restore my dignity. I sat up, pulling my robe together again and feeling along the sore patch on my foot.

Hugh dug around in his pocket and pulled out his Swiss Army Knife key chain. “Use the tweezer attachment, okay? But it’s getting too dark to see.”

I thrust the key chain back at him. “I can’t stay here any longer while I’m under attack!” I told him in a few sentences what had happened at the archery field. “It wasn’t one of the knights on horseback, because the arrow came from the wrong direction. It was someone else.”

“Come back to Tokyo with me.” Hugh was already pulling me to my feet.

“I can’t. Everything I own is at the teahouse. I have to go there tonight.”

“Lead on, then, because I’m not leaving you. Not tonight.”

A few days earlier I wouldn’t have shown him the teahouse, but now I thought of it as my last refuge. The walk that night was especially slow with my sore foot and no flashlight. When we finally reached the woods, Hugh started muttering about poison ivy. A small, mangy animal ran into the path and stared at us with cold yellow eyes, Hugh grabbed at me for support.

“What is it, a hound from hell?”

“It’s called a
tanuki.
It’s just a Japanese raccoon dog.”

“Have you really been staying here? How do you even get inside?” Hugh asked when we reached the ruined teahouse.

“These windows are like doors. But only one works.” I slid the
shoji
aside and climbed into my small room. After Hugh followed, I slammed the screen closed and lit the citronella candle.

I noticed a large paper shopping bag from the Union Supermarket standing in the middle of the room. I opened it and found the street clothes I had left in Akemi’s shower room. She’d dropped it off so I wouldn’t have to come to her the next day to get it. If she’d had time to drop the bag off, she couldn’t have shot at me on the archery course.

“This is as bad as your old place in North Tokyo. But more minimalist.” Hugh didn’t pay attention to the bag; instead, his gaze wandered over the worn futon and the decrepit
tatami.
“I gather there’s no kitchen. Do you even have a loo?”

“I use the ladies’ room near the temple grounds. Or, in times of desperation, I go in the woods.”

“Well, at least you have the pocket phone. Thank God for that. In fact, I need to make a call.”

Disappointed beyond words, I watched him punch in a phone number. “I just paged Angus. He’ll call me back.”

“Angus got himself a
pager?
Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?” I asked.

“I’m renting it for him,” Hugh snapped. Soon enough, the pocket phone rang and he answered. “Angus? Er, I called to ask a favor . . . would you go back to Tokyo with Winnie? I’m tied up.”

Angus must have given him an earful, because Hugh listened with a downcast expression and then handed me the telephone. “He wants to say hello.”

“Well done, Rei!” Angus drawled. “Now that Shug’s out of the way, I’ll arrange to have Winnie exterminated. I heard there’s a mercenary running around with a bow and arrow.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Keep my brother for the night, okay? I’ll go back with Winnie, but after that I’m going to be out. Make sure he doesn’t call the flat, and don’t tell him that I told you so, all right? I don’t want to hurt his brotherly feelings.” Angus clicked off.

Poor Hugh. Of course I wasn’t going to tell him Angus didn’t want to be with him and was probably going to throw a rave at Roppongi Hills or stay out all night getting in trouble.

“I’m incredibly thirsty. What have you got?” Hugh asked.

I waved him toward the corner where I kept my collection of fruit and bottled water.

“Angus told me the festival’s collapsed. Police are crawling all over the place, and all the tourists are fighting for space on the trolleys so they can get back to the train station,” Hugh said after he’d poured the warmish water into two tea bowls for us to drink from.

The thought came to me that the shooter might have fired into the crowd to cause mass hysteria. I couldn’t think of a better way to embarrass the Mihoris or ensure the festival would never be held again. I voiced my feelings, but Hugh brushed them aside.

“Come closer to the candle and show me your foot.” He was flexing his Swiss Army Knife tweezers. “You were the target. How convenient for Akemi to set you up in the first row and then leave.”

“It was only because we fought that she left.” I flinched as he pulled out the longest nettle first.

“You mean you fight with other people besides my brother and me?”

“I said something about her cousin, and she went ballistic.” I wiggled my foot, but he held on to it.

“You’re talking about the vice abbot who had a seizure? The one Angus saved? We saw him tonight.”

“Where?”

“He was standing on stage giving a speech we couldn’t understand. Then some kids came up to recite something, and he and Akemi’s father moved off.”

“Toward the archery demonstration?”

“I didn’t see. There were too many people around, and Winnie was nattering about wanting to buy sausage on a stick.” He looked at me. “Sorry. You look hungry.”

I was actually having vulgar thoughts about the kind of sausage Winnie really wanted, but I just said, “I’m always hungry. I can’t store food here because of the ants.”

“Do you want some roasted chestnuts? I’d just bought some when you ran by.” He pulled a crumpled paper package out of his shirt pocket. “Chestnuts and water. One of our more bizarre candlelight dinners.”

I didn’t want to get distracted, so I gave him a hard look and said, “Remember how I thought the
tansu
was the link between Nao Sakai and Nomu Ideta’s deaths? Nomu Ideta, the old man who originally owned it, was Nana Mihori’s elder brother. I was sent to buy the
tansu
from Nao Sakai so there would be no suspicion she was behind it.”

Hugh stared at me, then said, “You refused to deliver the
tansu
because the age was wrong. Perhaps it’s valuable for a different reason.”

“All I know is that Nana and Akemi have some kind of secret. And now Mohsen’s vanished, and Jun Kuroi is in danger.”

“Mohsen’s fine,” Hugh said easily. “He flew to Korea for a few days so that the British company that’s going to hire him can finish the paperwork and allow him to reenter with a proper visa.”

“You knew this all the time that I thought he had been murdered?” I was outraged.

“You should have asked instead of hanging up every time I answered the telephone. In fact, Mohsen called last night to see how you were doing. It was pretty embarrassing not to be able to tell him where you were, that I was completely out of your life.”

“Thank God he’s all right,” I said. “I can’t wait to tell Lieutenant Hata.”

“Just because the Mihoris haven’t killed Mohsen it doesn’t mean they aren’t plotting against another man,” Hugh said. “Perhaps you heard them talking about me.”

“Don’t make me laugh! They hardly know you exist.”

“Since you’ve left me, I’m the one who’s stuck with the
tansu
, and it’s a risk. I want it out.”

“Okay, I’ll get rid of it. Maybe Mr. Ishida will let me put it in his warehouse,” I said.

“Can you do it tomorrow? You need to come to the flat anyway, as half your wood-block prints are gone.”

“Stolen?” I was horrified. My financial losses were mounting.

“Not quite.” Hugh chuckled. “We were surprised yesterday morning by a contingent of ladies who had a shopping appointment you apparently forgot.”

“Oh, no!” I remembered them now: the Cherry Blossom Ladies’ Club. I could have cried for the lost sales.

“I made them some tea and told them you’d been called away on a sudden buying trip. Angus handled the sales. You cleared about ninety thousand yen.”

Having bought the prints months ago, I could barely remember how much cash I’d laid out for them, but ninety thousand yen—about seven hundred and fifty dollars—would be very useful.

“How did Angus price them? Usually I give the customer a price ten percent lower than the tags on the back of the pictures.”

“Angus sold them exactly as marked and everyone was perfectly happy. Don’t complain.”

“Mrs. Maeda would be impressed,” I said, smiling. “She’d probably rather have Angus for her sales-clerk than me!”

“Who’s Mrs. Maeda?”

“My new employer. I’ve been working afternoons at her antiques shop in Kamakura.”

“You created a whole new life for yourself, didn’t you? Just like that.” Hugh snapped his fingers. “Well, if you stop home with me tomorrow morning, you can sort out the
tansu
and take a shower, change your clothes—”

“I suppose I’m not exactly fresh,” I said, pushing back my damp bangs. I’d showered two hours ago, but Akemi had some kind of unscented organic soap that might not have done its job.

Hugh’s voice dropped. “I love your smell. So much that I haven’t changed the sheets.”

I reminded myself that he was with me as a matter of duty. I said, “The sooner we go to sleep the sooner we can leave.”

“That’s true.” He sounded businesslike again. “All right, shall we flip for the futon?”

“Are you crazy? Neither of us should have to suffer sleeping directly on the
tatami
.” I shuddered. “It’s full of little biting creatures.”

“What’s with the chirping over there?” He looked suspiciously at the corner before he started undressing.

“It’s a cricket. You should feel blessed! In the Edo period, aristocrats kept crickets in cages and fed and watered them all summer because their chirping sound was considered so beautiful. There are still some high-class restaurants that use crickets for a dining accompaniment.” I kept going, trying to distract myself from the sight of Hugh’s casual disrobing. When he unbuttoned his madras shirt, I saw a very slight expansion at the waist; not enough to be unattractive, but enough to make me want to touch it.

“I’m going out for a leak. If I don’t return, the
tanuki
got me.”

I used Hugh’s absence to change into a semiclean T-shirt and bury myself completely under the thin sheet. The pocket phone rang, and, having a strong feeling it was my phantom caller, I did not pick up. If it was Angus, he could leave a message on my voice mail.

The phone had stopped ringing by the time Hugh returned and slipped in next to me.

“This wretched futon is so narrow I’ll be on top of you, like it or not,” he whispered as he curled against my back, wrapping his arms around me. Even if there had been room, I couldn’t move away. I was paralyzed with longing.

“You’re not being fair,” I muttered as he began kissing the nape of my neck.

“Aha. You’re wearing my vest.” His hands moved underneath the T-shirt, stroking my breasts. “I want it back.”

“It’s yours.” In a sudden movement I pulled the shirt over my head. I turned to face him. My hands shook as they reached for him.

Hugh kissed me deeply, then broke away. “We can’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

“When I made plans to come to Kamakura tonight, it was just to humor my brother! I didn’t expect I’d find you.”

“You were with Winnie.” I felt a stab of pain.

“She’s like an older sister to me,” Hugh repeated, stroking my hair. “It’s not even worth talking about, not when we finally have time alone together.”

It was our night. A succession of terrible events had moved the stars in line and brought him to my bed. It was meant to be. I moved my mouth in a trail down his stomach, knowing how to give the kind of pleasure he could not resist.

“You don’t understand! I have nothing with me. No condom—”

“Tonight I don’t care,” I whispered, climbing on top.

“If we do it, you’ll hate me tomorrow,” he murmured.

“I don’t care.” And as I slid down on him, I learned why so many people had unprotected sex. The feeling was more intimate and delicious than anything I’d ever dreamed of. I looked down at him, willing him to open his eyes again and watch me moving in the candlelight. He did.

“This is too good.” His expression was pure rapture.

“I love this. I love you,” I blurted.

The cricket sang, Hugh grabbed my hips, and I flew.

I awoke to warm pressure on my mouth. I savored the kiss and took my time opening my eyes.

“Such a beautiful morning,” Hugh said, looking from my face to the window. “It’s the first time since I left Scotland that I’ve been woken by birdsong.”