You wouldn't be so outspoken about your feelings if you knew you were a murder suspect, Sano thought. Kikunojo had just made his motive clear.

"What was he blackmailing you for?" he asked.

Kikunojo stood and untied his sash. He shed his outer- and under-kimonos. Beneath them he wore cotton pads over his chest, hips, and b.u.t.tocks. These he removed to expose a slender but well-muscled body. Sano decided that Kikunojo would definitely have had the strength to kill Noriyoshi and Yukiko and throw their bodies into the river.

"There's an odd story making the rounds," Kikunojo said. "People are saying that Noriyoshi didn't really commit suicide. That he was murdered. Have you heard?"

"I may have." Even as Sano decided that Wisteria must have spread the story, he could appreciate Kikunojo's trick. The actor had neatly avoided answering the question by throwing out an interesting fact. Such quick thinking bespoke a man intelligent enough to plan and execute an elaborate murder. "What was he blackmailing you for?" he repeated, refusing to fall for the trick.

Kikunojo took a man's black silk kimono decorated with gold cartwheels and blue waves from the rack. This he put on over a blue under-kimono, tying it with a plain black sash. "I hardly think that's any of your business," he said.

He looked with feigned interest toward the door. Through a gap in the curtain, a portion of the stage was visible. The intermission entertainment had begun for those members of the audience who hadn't left the theater. An actor dressed as a samurai performed the yariodori, a comic dance that poked fun at the retainers of daimyo. He waved and flicked his plumed war staff in the manner of a woman doing her spring housecleaning. The cheers presumably came from the commoners in the audience; the hisses and catcalls from the samurai.

"It is if Noriyoshi was murdered," Sano said.

Kikunojo gave an exasperated sigh as he pulled a black cloak over his kimono. "I didn't kill him, if that's what you've come here to find out." When Sano didn't reply, he said, "Oh, all right. Noriyoshi found out that I was seeing a married lady. Her husband would kill us both if he found out. You know how it is."

Sano did. Kabuki theater had been founded about a hundred years before by a Shinto priestess from Izumo Shrine. But Kabuki had soon lost its religious a.s.sociations. Courtesans took up the theatrics, and their lewd performances overstepped the bounds of propriety. Male admirers vied for their favors, often creating public disturbances. The government responded by banning female performers from the theater. Since then, all female roles had been played by men. But the troubles hadn't ended. Onnagata proved just as adept at creating scandal as the courtesans. They attracted both women who found their masquerade t.i.tillating and men who simply liked men. Kikunojo, with his clandestine affair, was part of a tradition.

"The shogun can do as he pleases-with the wives and daughters of his ministers, yet," Kikunojo continued. "But we ordinary adulterers get punished, if not by irate spouses, then by the authorities. What do you think of that, yoriki?"

Sano thought that Kikunojo had once again tried to divert the conversation. "Rank commands privileges, Kikunojo-san. Now, about Noriyoshi?"

Kikunojo shot him a look of grudging respect. "Noriyoshi kept asking for more and more money," he said. "He bled me dry. Finally, about a month ago, I got to thinking: if he talked, who would believe him? It would be his word against mine, and who was he? So I took the chance. I said I wasn't going to pay anymore, and I told him why." Kikunojo took a white bridal kimono and red under-kimono from the rack and laid them on a square cloth with fresh socks and purple kerchief, the wig he'd removed, and a selection of makeup. "I should have done it a long time ago. Because he never talked, and he never asked for any more money."

If Kikunojo had really stopped paying, where had the money in Noriyoshi's room come from, Sano wondered. He saw a way to take advantage of the opening Kikunojo had given him.

"Suppose Noriyoshi was murdered," he said. "Could you prove you were somewhere else when it happened?"

Kikunojo laughed as he tied the ends of the cloth around his possessions. "My good man, even if I'd wanted to kill Noriyoshi, I wouldn't have had the time. The night he died, I had a rehearsal until well after midnight. We're starting a new play tomorrow. After that... " His smile eerily evoked the lovely Princess Taema. "After that, I was with my lady."

"Would she corroborate that?"

The onnagata bent a pitying look on Sano. "Of course not. Didn't I say she's married? And don't bother asking me her name, because I won't tell you."

Sano clenched his teeth together in annoyance. Getting facts from people during an unofficial murder investigation was proving difficult indeed. He had no legal means of forcing them to tell him anything, and any illegal methods he used would undoubtedly attract Magistrate Ogyu's attention.

"Any more questions?" Kikunojo asked.

"One. Are you acquainted with Lord Niu's daughter, Yukiko?"

Although Sano watched Kikunojo's face closely, he saw no hint of uneasiness, only mild surprise at an apparently irrelevant question.

"Yukiko," the actor said, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I've seen her. The whole Niu family attends the theater often."

If Kikunojo had killed Noriyoshi and Yukiko, his admission could be a clever way of implying that he had nothing to hide. Besides, Sano could easily have learned that the Nius were Kabuki enthusiasts, and a lie would have aroused his suspicion. Sano tried to imagine how and why the murders might have taken place. Maybe Kikunojo had killed Yukiko because she'd somehow witnessed Noriyoshi's murder.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to go now," Kikunojo said. "I'm late already." Then, very casually, as if the thought had just occurred to him, he added, "If you think that Noriyoshi got killed by someone he was blackmailing, then perhaps you should talk to a certain sumo wrestler named Raiden."

Again Sano admired Kikunojo's quick intelligence. What better way to divert suspicion than to direct it toward someone else?

"What did Noriyoshi have on him?" he asked.

Kikunojo shrugged. "You'll have to ask Raiden." He slid open the dressing room's outer door, letting in a gust of cool wind from the street.

The prospect of seeing an onnagata walk casually out the door in male attire drew Sano's interest momentarily from the investigation. "I thought you always appeared in public dressed as a woman," he said.

"Sometimes I have to sacrifice my art for the sake of privacy," Kikunojo explained. "If I were to venture outside in those"-he waved toward his kimonos and wigs-"people would recognize me. Some of my more persistent and adoring admirers might follow me. And I can't have that. Not today-I have a very personal matter to attend to. A pity, though. I'll have to get dressed all over again when I get there." He slung the bundle over his shoulder.

Kikunojo was going to see his lady, Sano realized belatedly. Although why the actor needed to take along a bridal kimono was more than he cared to think about.

Lowering his eyes demurely, the onnagata smiled. "Sayonara, yoriki," he murmured, bowing low. Without makeup or costume, he became a woman before Sano's eyes. Then the great Kikunojo turned and dashed into the street, a nondescript man quickly lost in the crowd.

On impulse, Sano followed him. Kikunojo had a motive for Noriyoshi's murder and a connection with the Nius. He also had the intelligence to plan and the strength to carry out the murders. In male dress, he could move freely about the city without attracting attention. His presence at the rehearsal could be verified by the other actors, but had he really spent the rest of the night with a lady? Sano had to find out who she was. To do that, he could spend hours questioning the theater gossips-or let the onnagata lead him straight there.

Chapter 10.

Although Sano's military education had included no training in the art of stealth, he found it surprisingly easy to follow Kikunojo. The onnagata walked briskly, threading his way through the street with agility, but his height made him easy to keep in view-in a crowd comprised mostly of women and children. Sano hung back about twenty paces as they proceeded down Saru-waka-cho, ready to take cover behind a cl.u.s.ter of pedestrians or inside a teahouse should Kikunojo look over his shoulder.

Kikunojo didn't. He seemed unaware of Sano's presence. Sano didn't have to worry that Kikunojo might suddenly jump on a horse and ride off, either. He'd heard that the shogun, an enthusiastic arts patron, meant to grant Kikunojo samurai status in recognition for his theatrical achievements, but for now Kikunojo was still a commoner, and commoners did not ride. Sano began to enjoy his secret pursuit.

Then, just as Kikunojo pa.s.sed the Yuki-za, the puppet theater's door opened and a horde of men poured out: samurai leaving the choice floor seats after the play. Kikunojo was lost in their midst. Sano hurried forward, frantically trying to locate his quarry.

"Hey, watch where you're going, brother," someone said. The other men jostled Sano, carrying him back in the direction from which he'd come.

Sano fought his way back to the Yuki-za. When he reached it, he saw no sign of Kikunojo. He peered up the street and down the nearest alley. No Kikunojo there, either. Then he saw three pairs of palanquin bearers hoist the poles of their sedan chairs onto their shoulders and trot away from the theater entrance. Immediately he guessed that the onnagata was inside one of the curtained vehicles. But which? For lack of any idea, Sano picked one at random. He followed it out of the theater district to a quiet nearby street where the weighty tile roofs and trim half-timbered walls of wealthy merchants' houses rose above wooden fences. Hiding behind a public notice board, he watched the bearers stop and set the palanquin down before a gate. Was this Kikunojo's lady's residence? Sano peered at the shuttered windows, hoping for a glimpse of her.

The palanquin's curtain lifted. To Sano's intense disappointment, the pa.s.senger who stepped out was not Kikunojo, but a very old, very drunk man who swayed and dropped his money when he tried to pay the bearers. Sano cursed his luck as he headed back to the theater district for his horse. Now he would have to consult the gossips after all. But after the excitement of the chase, such a tedious prospect didn't appeal to him. He was beginning to enjoy detective work. The novel idea that deceit could serve an honorable purpose held a strong attraction for him. He thought of Kikunojo's reference to Noriyoshi's other blackmail victim and remembered that Wisteria, too, had mentioned a sumo wrestler. First he would look for Raiden.

He found the wrestler in a cheap entertainment district near the Nihonbashi Bridge, where commoners congregated. The proprietor at one of the teahouses that sold tickets to the big matches had given him the detailed directions necessary for locating anything in Nihonbashi's maze of nameless streets.

"Turn left off the Great North-South Road at the big furniture store," the proprietor had said. "Then keep going past the streets with the silversmiths and the basket makers, past some houses where the women take in laundry and dry it on racks on the roofs. Turn right. Go past the noodle restaurant, the barber shop, and three teahouses. You'll find Raiden on the street in front of the storyteller's hall. That's his place. He's always there."

Sano rode past the silversmiths and the basket makers. He found the laundries and the noodle restaurant, the barber shop and the teahouses. A noisy crowd had gathered in front of the storyteller's hall, but apparently not to hear the old man who was entertaining a group of mothers and children inside. Intent on some action taking place in their midst, they yelled encouragement to the unseen partic.i.p.ants.

Dismounting, Sano tied his horse outside one of the teahouses and elbowed his way through the crowd until he could see what was happening.

In place of the straw rice bales that usually defined a wrestling ring, pebbles marked a lopsided circle that had already become trampled and disarranged. A ragged little boy beating on a block of wood with a stick subst.i.tuted for the drummers who paraded through the city to announce the official matches. At one side of the ring paced a man who could only be Raiden.

The wrestler was about Sano's age and height, but there the similarity ended. He wore a bright yellow kimono printed on the back with one of the rebus designs currently popular: a cherry branch, sword, and oar, which, when named aloud, sounded like "I Love a Fight." It hung open to reveal a huge flabby belly girdled with a fringed black loincloth. Putting his hands on his hips, Raiden bent at the waist, exposing ma.s.sive naked b.u.t.tocks. He canted sideways, raising one bent-kneed leg high, then lowering it so that his dirty bare foot struck the earth with a mighty stomp. Dust rose in puffs. He stomped again: both to show his strength and to drive away evil spirits. His fierce scowl made a demon mask of his round, pudgy face.

The audience cheered. "Raiden!" The name, a colorful pseudonym like many a.s.sumed by professional wrestlers, meant "Thunder and Lightning." And Raiden's excited spectators certainly acted as though they expected from him all the power and drama of a violent storm. "Raiden! Raiden!" A few men set up the chant, tossing coins at their champion's feet.

"No contest," the man beside Sano remarked.

Sano looked at Raiden's opponent and privately agreed. The man disrobing on the other side of the circle was as big and fat as Raiden, but clearly no professional wrestler. The good clothes and the absence of swords marked him as a merchant. When he took off his kimono, Sano caught a glimpse of its opulent lining: the wealthy commoner's secret protest against the government's laws forbidding him to wear silk. Shivering in the cold, the man clumsily imitated Raiden's stomps. His moonlike face wore an expression of confused glee, as if he didn't quite understand how he'd got himself into this but was tickled at his own daring. The men who held his clothes, presumably his friends, cheered him on.

Raiden took a pouch out of his kimono. He poured a white substance from it into his hand. Most of it he scattered into the makeshift ring; the rest he tongued. Salt-to purify himself and the ground according to ancient tradition. Then he shrugged off his kimono and threw it to the boy with the wooden drum.

The two compet.i.tors faced off, crouched at opposite sides of the circle. Fists to the ground, they stared into each other's eyes. The audience fell silent. Sano's heart began to pound as the tension mounted. Instinctively he took a step backward, away from the ring.

This was not the ancient Shinto fertility ritual of fourteen hundred years ago, in which wrestlers from neighboring villages competed for the blessings of the G.o.ds at rice-planting time. Neither was it the legendary match of some five hundred years later that had determined which of two imperial princes would succeed to the emperor's throne. And it bore no resemblance to today's great tournaments, where professionals retained by the daimyo performed in formal style before huge audiences on the grounds of Edo 's important temples. This was street-corner sumo at its worst: wild, dirty, and unpredictable. Anything could happen. Sano wondered if he should try to stop the match. Although the government issued periodic edicts against street-corner sumo, it wasn't currently illegal. He saw two doshin he recognized as his subordinates on the other side of the ring. The match even had tacit official sanction.

With loud roars, Raiden and his opponent charged simultaneously. Fat met fat with a tremendous smack. The impact sent both men staggering apart. The spectators jumped back and recovered their voices.

"Kill him! Kill him!" The shouts thundered in Sano's ears.

Raiden rushed the merchant with a speed amazing for such a large man. Using tsuppari-slapping technique-he delivered a series of rapid, open-handed blows to the merchant's chest, throat, and face. The merchant grunted, more out of confusion than from pain, Sano thought. He tried to slap back, but Raiden advanced, forcing him to the edge of the ring. Just when it seemed the match would end with Raiden's victory, the wrestler stepped back. He grinned and beckoned his panting opponent to attack him. Sano understood that Raiden didn't want an easy win. He was pulling his punches and giving the merchant another chance in order to bring in more spectators and more money.

Gamely the merchant threw himself at Raiden. The two grappled, Raiden standing his ground almost without effort as the merchant shoved and gasped. Raiden broke the merchant's hold. He fell back two paces, whether or not on purpose, Sano couldn't tell. Maybe he'd lost his balance; maybe he was still baiting the merchant.

"That's the way!" shouted the merchant's friends.

Buoyed by their support, the merchant launched a fresh charge. Sano winced, antic.i.p.ating another crash. But Raiden sidestepped at the last minute. Seizing the sides of the merchant's loincloth in both hands, he used the man's own momentum to cast him out of the ring: the outer-arm throw, one of sumo's cla.s.sic forty-eight "hands."

The merchant went hurtling into the crowd. His friends caught him as he fell. Raiden's supporters cheered; the merchant's cried out in disappointment. Then the cheers and cries turned to uneasy mutters.

Sano's heart lurched when he saw why. The wrestler's teasing grin had become a murderous grimace. His face purpled with a strange fury. Without warning, he lunged at his fallen opponent. He pummeled the helpless merchant with his fists, all the while bellowing like a mad bear.

"Stop!" the merchant screamed. Blood spurted from his nose. "You win! I surrender!"

The merchant's friends tried to fend off Raiden's a.s.sault, but the wrestler turned on them. Suddenly the crowd became a turbulent ma.s.s of flying fists, kicking legs, and thrashing bodies. Men yelled insults, uttered cries of pain.

"Stop!" Sano shouted. The crowd's noise drowned his voice. He tried to draw his sword, but bodies pressed against him, making movement impossible. If only he'd stopped the match when he'd had the chance!

This was the real danger of street-corner sumo. Not that a wrestler would get hurt in the unrefereed matches-although many did-but that violence would break out among the audience. A crowd could quickly become a mindless killing tool, a sword flying free of any controlling hand. Now the spectators ran for safety. Sano saw the drummer go down and get trampled under the pounding feet.

Fortunately the two doshin chose that moment to remember their duty. "Break it up!" they shouted. "Everybody go home. Fun's over!"

Poking and prodding with their jitte, they dispersed the crowd. One of them called his a.s.sistants to pick up the wounded men. Sano, standing in the shelter of a teahouse doorway to avoid being driven off with the rest of the crowd, watched the other doshin stroll over to Raiden, who stood in the center of the ring.

The wrestler's mysterious rage seemed to have pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come. Now his face wore a dazed frown. Blinking in apparent befuddlement at his departing audience, he called halfheartedly, "Any more challengers? Who among you is brave enough to face the mighty Raiden?"

No one was. The doshin extended his hand to Raiden, palm up. Raiden sighed, then bent to pick up the coins from the ring. He counted half the money into the doshin's hand. The doshin smirked and walked away, jingling the coins. He didn't notice Sano, but then he would hardly expect to see his superior in a place like this.

So Raiden paid the doshin to tolerate his matches and keep order at them. Sano shook his head, knowing he must reprimand his subordinates during the next report session. The outcome of the fight could have been much worse: Men had died during such matches and the riots they provoked. Cautiously he walked over to Raiden, who now stood alone in the ring, scratching his crotch with one hand as he examined the coins he held in the other. The wrestler looked harmless enough now, but would his rage resurface?

"Not even enough to eat on," Raiden complained. "Why did those doshin have to go and break up my match?"

Had he forgotten that he'd attacked a helpless man and started a riot? Confused and wary, Sano nevertheless decided to take advantage of the situation.

"Let me buy you a meal," he said. Raiden might be more amenable to answering questions-and less likely to erupt again- if plied with food and drink.

Raiden's pout dissolved into a sunny smile. "All right," he agreed with an alacrity that told Sano he was used to accepting handouts from strangers. Probably he lived on them. That he performed on the street meant he had no daimyo sponsor or other source of steady income.

Sano waited while Raiden donned his kimono, along with the shoes, cloak, and swords that had been lying in a heap outside the ring. Then the two of them walked down the street to the noodle restaurant.

The place was little more than a roadside food stall. Its sliding doors stood wide open; only a short blue curtain hanging from the eaves protected it from the outdoors. Inside, along the left wall, a strip of earth floor led through the small dining room to the kitchen, where two women toiled amid steam and smoke over a charcoal stove. Their huge cauldrons sent forth the enticing odor of broth made with garlic, soy sauce, miso, and scallions. An old man dressed in a blue cotton kimono and headband stood behind the counter that partially divided the dining room from the kitchen. A few lucky diners knelt on the raised plank floor in front of the counter with their bowls and chopsticks, but the rest sat on the floor's edge, with their feet either in the kitchen corridor or the street. Sano and Raiden went inside and approached the counter.

"Two house specials." Raiden, who, from the bows and nods he got from the proprietor and customers, seemed to be a regular, gave their order. "And plenty of sake."

The special turned out to be kitsune udon, "fox noodles," named for the mischievous fox spirit whom everyone blamed for their troubles. The thick white noodles bathed in rich brown broth and topped with a crusty golden square of fried tofu were the spirit's favorite food. Sano noticed that Raiden's bowl was twice as large as his own, and the bottle of sake enormous. He handed over his money, thinking that detective work was getting expensive. The Nius' funeral gift, the trips to Yoshiwara, the theater ticket, and now feeding a wrestler added up to as much as he'd formerly made in a week of tutoring.

With some difficulty, Sano and Raiden cleared a s.p.a.ce for themselves on the edge of the floor. Sano found himself jammed between the counter and Raiden's ma.s.sive bulk. But at least the heat from the kitchen and from the sweaty wrestler kept him warm.

Raiden shoveled noodles and tofu from bowl to mouth with his chopsticks, pausing between bites to deliver bits of monologue.

"It's a shame that a great wrestler like me has to fight for zeni in the street, don't you think?" Slurp, gulp. "Living hand to mouth like a common beggar! Well, let me tell you, stranger, it wasn't always this way for Raiden."

Sano couldn't help staring at Raiden's hands. They seemed oddly jointless, like the hands of people in wood-block prints. The fingertips, which ended in tiny, spatulate nails, bent almost all the way back with each movement. Sano wondered how such weak-looking hands could have the strength necessary for sumo. Or for killing two people and carrying their bodies to the river?

Raiden paused to fill his cup with sake and drain it with one swallow. "Two springs ago, I was the top wrestler in Lord Toru's stable. I had fine living quarters in his estate, ten apprentices to serve me, and all the women I wanted. The best food, and as much of it as I could eat. 1 fought the best men and defeated them all. The shogun himself praised my skill."

Surely an exaggeration. If Raiden had been a top wrestler, Sano would have heard of him, but he hadn't. And Lord Toru was one of the lesser daimyo. His wealth amounted to a fraction of the Nius', hardly enough to maintain a luxurious sumo stable. Besides, the shogun's interests tended toward Confucianism and the arts, not popular sport.

"A great life, don't you think?" Raiden said, downing another cup of sake. A certain wistfulness in his voice told Sano that the wrestler was bragging just as much to bolster his ego as to impress. Sano could pity him, even as he remembered Raiden a.s.saulting the merchant.

Raiden emptied his bowl and signaled the proprietor to bring him another. Sano reached in his cash pouch for more money. "But Lord Toru dismissed me because I picked up the master-of-arms and threw him against the wall. Unfair, don't you think? After all, I didn't really hurt the man. He lived. And I didn't mean to do it. Ever since I hurt my head in a match a while back, there's been a demon living inside it, making me do awful things." He touched his temple and added sadly, "That's how I got my name: 'Thunder and Lightning. ' I strike anywhere, anytime, and when I do, everybody had better get out of the way."

Raiden, apparently a man used to dominating the conversation, showed no interest in Sano. Other than his habitual "don't you think?" he asked no questions. Sano ate in silence and let him ramble on. Identifying himself would only inhibit the careless flow of confidences, and Raiden was telling him plenty without the least urging. Already he'd learned that the wrestler was short on funds and had a consistently volatile temper. Both these qualities would make him dangerous prey for a blackmailer like Noriyoshi.

Now Raiden launched a tirade about the hardships of his life: poor food, greedy landlord, disrespect from other wrestlers. Sano decided it was time to guide the conversation to a more relevant subject.

"Did you hear about the artist who committed shinju?" he asked. "Noriyoshi, I think his name was."

Raiden stopped eating long enough to give Sano a wary glance. "Maybe," he said casually. He sucked a noodle into his mouth and wiped his lips on his sleeve. But a sudden jerk of his body at the mention of Noriyoshi had already belied his nonchalance.

"You knew him?" Sano prodded.

"Maybe." Raiden's tone remained casual, but he began to chew with a savage intensity.

"You didn't like him?"

Raiden said nothing. Sano waited. He didn't think the garrulous wrestler could remain quiet for long. And he was right. Raiden hurled his empty bowl out the door and shouted, "I hated the miserable sc.u.m!"

His body tensed, and his flaccid hands balled into fists. His face darkened the way it had just before he'd attacked the merchant.

Sano saw the other diners staring at them. A few got up and ran out of the restaurant. Surreptiously moving his hand to his sword, he said, "Easy now, it's all right," in what he hoped was a soothing tone. Even after such a brief acquaintance, he could recognize the signs of an impending rampage. Could he stop the wrestler before he hurt someone?

Then, to Sano's amazement, the tension left Raiden's body, and his face went blank. He blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it, and gaped at Sano without apparent recognition.

"I'm sorry," he said in a fuzzy voice. "Were we talking? Did you just ask me something?" He looked down. "Where's my bowl?"