By The Sword Part 32

EVEN THE COOTIES CROAKED!.

If the Pulitzer folks awarded a prize for headlines, the Post Post would win every year. would win every year.

He skimmed the page three article. It reported how tests had shown that even bacteria and mold spores had been killed. The consensus was some sort of toxin, but n.o.body knew what particular toxin. Whatever it was, this stuff killed everything everything.

Just then a vaguely Asian guy stepped in and looked around. He wore khaki slacks and a long-sleeve, blue-and-white-striped rugby shirt. As his gaze settled on Jack, he raised his eyebrows and pointed. Jack nodded.

The guy wound through the tables and offered his hand when he reached Jack's. "Nakanaori Slater. But you can call me-"

"Naka," Jack said, shaking his hand. Good grip. He pointed to the other chair. "Yeah, I know."

Close up now Jack could see the Caucasian influence in his skin tone and features. Unlike his predecessor, this guy looked like the genuine offspring of a j.a.panese and an American. He also looked older than his predecessor-Jack guessed a well-preserved sixty, or maybe younger-and a lot more relaxed. His black hair was streaked with gray, and he too wore it combed down over the left half of his forehead.

"Moki's friend must have told you," he said, smiling as he seated himself. "What else did she tell you?"

His smooth English said he'd been raised in an English-speaking household.

"Nothing. I have no idea who she is."

He frowned. "Then how-?"

"Let me tell you a story, see if it rings a bell. Four days ago, right here at this table, I met with an Asian dude who also called himself Nakanaori Slater. He gave me a middle name too but-"

"Ok.u.mo?" Slater's face lightened a few shades. "He said he was Nakanaori Ok.u.mo Slater?"

"Yeah. Quite a mouthful. So I was glad for the just-call-me-Naka part."

He looked baffled. "But I'm-"

The waitress arrived then. Older than the one last time. Jack ordered a Hoegaarden, then waited to see what Slater would do.

"A double Jack Daniel's on the rocks."

Jack realized in the case of Naka One he should have heeded W. C. Fields's warning about never trusting a man who doesn't drink. Naka Two drank Jack Daniel's before lunch. Did that earn extra trust points?

He caught Jack studying him. "I need a double after what you just told me."

"Don't have to explain to me."

"Describe this 'Naka,'" he said.

"j.a.panese-all j.a.panese from the look of him, though he said he had an American father." He pointed to the dippity-do over Slater's left forehead. "Same hairstyle too." j.a.panese from the look of him, though he said he had an American father." He pointed to the dippity-do over Slater's left forehead. "Same hairstyle too."

Slater lifted his hair, revealing the rest of his forehead. "Did he have this?"

Jack stared at what looked like a red wine stain spreading from his hairline almost to his eyebrow. He tried to picture Naka Slater Number One's face and couldn't recall ever getting a peek under the dip.

"Couldn't say."

"My dad called it the Slater Stain. All the Slater men have something like it." He released the handful of hair, letting it drop back into place. "He had it, and both my sons have it, though thankfully to a lesser degree than I." He leaned forward, his onyx eyes intent. "What else did he tell you?"

Jack gave him a condensed version: Heirloom katana blade stolen from his Maui plantation, traced to New York, woman living with artist friend gives him Jack's name, so Naka Slater comes to New York to hire Jack to find the blade.

Slater's face was even paler than before. "That's incredible! It's all true except that I'm I'm Naka Slater, but I didn't get to New York until yesterday. He didn't happen to mention any scrolls, did he?" Naka Slater, but I didn't get to New York until yesterday. He didn't happen to mention any scrolls, did he?"

"No, nothing about scrolls."

"A bunch of ancient scrolls my father and Matsuo confiscated from-"

" 'Confiscated.' I like that."

"Okay, stole. They were stolen from me along with the katana, and I've recovered neither. I don't care about the scrolls-have no idea what's on them and couldn't care less-but that katana..."

The drinks arrived. Even though he wasn't all that hungry after the earlier omelet, Jack ordered the burger with cheddar cheese and bacon. Couldn't pa.s.s up an Ear burger. Slater ordered the same.

Naka Two was starting out a lot easier to like than One.

As the waitress was leaving, he tapped her arm and rattled the ice in his near-empty gla.s.s. "Another of these?" He pointed to the barely sipped Hoegaarden but Jack shook his head.

Not yet.

Slater drained his sour mash and said, "Another Slater trait: a fondness for booze and a very efficient liver." He put down the gla.s.s and stared at Jack. "Now the all-important question: Did you find the blade?"

Jack gave a reluctant nod. Slater must have noticed the reluctance because he stiffened in his seat.

"Oh, G.o.d. Don't tell me-"

Jack nodded again.

He slammed his fist on the table. "Kokami!"

"Pardon?"

"A Hawaiian term of endearment. Any way of tracking it down?"

Leaving out the deaths and the yakuza and what he'd had to go through to get the sword, Jack told him about the attempted exchange, Naka One's attempt to kill him, the subsequent accident, and the disappearing sword.

Slater squeezed his eyes shut. "So, it's literally a dead end."

"Very literally. Very dead."

Slater's second JD arrived. As he scooped it up and sipped, Jack remembered something.

"Roll up your sleeves."

"Why?"

"The other Naka was younger, but otherwise copied you down to the hair comb. I wonder if his tattoo was part of that."

Slater showed Jack a pair of bare forearms. "I don't have any tattoos. As someone said, why decorate your body with drawings you wouldn't hang on your wall?"

"Okay. This other guy had some sort of hexagon or something tattooed above his left wrist."

Slater frowned as he pulled down his sleeves. "Hexagon? That's it? No dragons or hibiscus or carp or any of the usual j.a.panese design salad?"

"No." Jack tried to picture the dead man's arm. "Just a hollow hexagon with a bunch of crisscrossing lines. Like hatch marks." He glanced at Slater and found him staring at him. "What?"

"You're pulling my leg, right?"

"No."

He signaled to the waitress. "Can I borrow your pen?"

She handed it to him and he began scribbling on the butcher-paper tablecloth. When he'd finished, he pointed to it.

"Did it look anything like that?"

Jack looked. "Exactly."

"It can't be." He slammed the pen down. "Impossible."

"If you say so. But for curiosity's sake-let's just a.s.sume I'm not lying-what's it supposed to mean?"

Slater was silent a long time. Finally...

"Sorry. I'm not calling you a liar. It's just... that was one of the symbols used by an ancient j.a.panese cult of self-mutilating monks. They-"

"Whoa." A cult? Winslow had mentioned a cult. "And did you say self-mutilating?"

Slater nodded. "Well, not self self-mutilating in the strictest sense. They mutilated each other."

"Swell."

"Once they'd gone through acolyte stages and reached the inner circles, they'd cut little flaps in their facial skin to hold a cloth mask in place, leaving only the eyes visible. Then they started giving up their senses, one at a time: sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch."

"Touch? How do you give up touch? Unless you cut off your skin."

"They had a slower method. One limb at a time. The final cut was high on the spinal cord, severing all sensation from the body but not so high as to affect the diaphragm. They were left floating in a black, silent void, seeing the thing they'd suffered for: the Kakureta Kao."

"Which means...?"

Slater pointed to his drawing and ran his finger along the outline of the hexagon. "See this? That represents a head." Then he tapped the hatchmarked center. "What sort of face do you see here?"

"None. Just a bunch of lines."

"Exactly. Originally, when the tattoo was in progress, the artist would draw a rudimentary face inside and then obscure it with all those crisscrossing lines. Hiding it. That's what Kakureta Kao means: They were called the Order of the Hidden Face."

"And what happens when they see this Hidden Face?"

"Then they knew the meaning of everything. They died happy and fulfilled, and joined it in its eternal void."

Jack had noticed something. "You keep using the past tense."

"That's because the last surviving members of the sole remaining enclave were incinerated by Little Boy on August sixth, 1945."

6.

"I hurt, sensei sensei."

Wearing a surgeon's mask and a stolen lab coat, Toru Akechi stared down at the man in the hospital bed and grieved. Poor Tadasu. Had he succeeded in his mission he would have been admitted to the Inner Circles.

But he had failed.

Tadasu lay in the bed like a broken marionette-legs suspended on wires, both arms in casts, his neck sheathed in a hard plastic brace.

Toru nodded toward the clear plastic bag suspended over the side of the bed. When he spoke, the surgical mask he wore m.u.f.fled his voice more than the traditional mask worn in the temple.

"They give you painkillers."

"The pain is in my heart, sensei sensei. The pain of failure."

Toru controlled a sudden burst of fury. He wanted to say, You should should feel pain, Tadasu Fumihiro. In your heart and everywhere else. You deserve intractable pain for such miserable failure. feel pain, Tadasu Fumihiro. In your heart and everywhere else. You deserve intractable pain for such miserable failure.

For although Tadasu had to answer to him, Toru had to answer to others.

But he modulated his response. "You made many mistakes, Tadasu. The first was in choosing the thief."

The younger man looked as if he was about to speak, but instead pressed his lips tightly together and nodded as best he could within his neck brace. He knew better than to mention that his sensei sensei had approved the choice of Hugh Gerrish for the job. had approved the choice of Hugh Gerrish for the job.

It had seemed a good choice at the time: Better to deal with a known quant.i.ty here in New York, where they had the temple, and fly him out to Maui rather than try to find someone in Hawaii.

But Gerrish had betrayed them.

"At least we have the scrolls," Tadasu said.