DeGeorge sounded drunk, as if lurching into the sides of the corridor with every step. Harry could picture the man’s red nose and dirty gray suit. Go away, he thought.

“Harry Niles is here,” Ishigami said loudly. He smiled at his own English. “Come see Harry.”

“Where?” DeGeorge’s voice shouted. “I filed a story on your little speech. The censor killed it. What are you, hiding? Playing cards?”

“Come see Harry,” Ishigami said.

From the sound of it, DeGeorge slid open each door as he progressed up the hall, stumbling around in stocking feet. “Jesus, you hired the whole place? Having a private party, are we?” The heavy steps paused at the closed door behind Harry, who could almost feel the bulk of DeGeorge leaning into the shoji. “This must be the place.”

Harry turned and said, “Run! Get out of here!”

“Knockee-knockee.”

The door slid open. Al DeGeorge pushed through a leer that changed to a quizzical expression as Ishigami stepped over the table with sword cocked and sliced the correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor diagonally from his shoulder to his hip. Holding himself together with his hands, DeGeorge tried to go in reverse. Ishigami followed, poking him with the tip of the sword as if steering a pig into a sty to a room with more space to swing. DeGeorge was out of sight, but Harry heard him, a reporter to the last, ask a plaintive “Why?”

The answer was a sound like scissors closing, weight dropping in a heap and something rolling underfoot. Harry endured a sensation like falling from a window and not yet hitting the ground. Michiko maintained perfect geisha poise.

Ishigami returned, stepping fastidiously around the bloody mat at the threshold and sliding the door shut.

He said, “That’s one.”

18

THERE WAS AN ETIQUETTE to geisha parties: no groping, no show of money, no sake once rice was served, although the rules were often violated by wartime profiteers who knew no better. Ishigami was a gentleman of the old school, who fueled on nothing but high-octane sake. Screw the rice. Anyway, who was sleepy? Not Ishigami, who sat in a white kimono spotted with blood and tended his sword with an oily rag.

Ishigami seemed to swell and fill the room. Perhaps because every sense of Harry’s was sensitized, Ishigami was magnified, every pore of his hatchet face, the blue cap of his cropped hair, the black wires of his brows and lashes, the dark mirrors of his eyes, not to mention the smell of salty sweat tinged by background accents of incense and blood. Harry noticed the checkmarks of fragmentation grenades on the colonel’s scalp, a notched ear, the way his neck swelled like a forearm when he leaned back. He studied how Ishigami’s hands curled around the handle of the sword the way a baseball glove would fit around a ball. Harry had to wonder whether Ishigami had soaked his hands and sword in neat’s-foot oil for a better grip. He noted the white kimono, which suggested a sense of ceremony and dedication to a task. He also noticed how little air was in the room, as if he and Ishigami had labored to the thin atmosphere of a mountain peak.

The problem was that Ishigami was smart, moral and psychotic, the worst possible combination. He couldn’t be gulled, bought or reasoned with. The last option was to kill him, and Harry couldn’t imagine accomplishing that without the gun he had just buried under the floorboards across the street. There was Ishigami’s own sword, but the colonel was just waiting for Harry to try.

Meanwhile, there were other plates to keep spinning. For example, the DC-3 being readied in its hangar at Haneda Field. DC-3s were built on license by Nakajima Aircraft, which also built excellent bombers. A crew would work around the clock to make sure the plane shone like a silver spoon on Monday. Harry anticipated speeches at the foot of the ramp from the Foreign Ministry and Nippon Air, appropriate remarks from passengers about the glowing future of the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, bouquets, bon voyages, bows all around. Thirty-six hours from now. None of this would include him if he were involved in a homicide, let alone if he were dead.

The other fly in the soup, so to speak, was Hawaii. Harry thought he had helped discourage any adventure in that direction with the phony oil-tank farm. Now, however, Ishigami said he had found the emperor perusing sea charts and maps. A sea chart was for locating a point in the ocean. A map was for finding Pearl Harbor and Battleship Row. Maybe His Majesty was being consulted, but he had about as much influence as the Indian on the hood of a Pontiac. It seemed impossible for the Japanese fleet to get close enough to attack Pearl, but after all, Yamamoto was the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. And his fleet was missing. However, if Harry had to bet, he’d say a raid on Pearl was no more than fifty-fifty, and not until he had winged his way back to California, assuming he survived the night.

He pictured the fatally surprised DeGeorge while Michiko laughed and chattered on. Lady Macbeth could learn from Michiko, Harry thought. No craven “Out, damned spot!” from this girl. With her long-sleeved kimono, elaborate wig and her face flattened by matte white, the geisha Michiko was a dangerous two-dimensional version of herself. Over time, the getup actually looked less bizarre and more like Michiko’s true face. He couldn’t believe he had slept with this woman, known her literally inside out, taught her the difference between an upbeat and down. At least he had never said “I love you,” he’d never been that big a fool. Between Ishigami and Michiko, Harry felt as if he had wandered into a samurai drama.

And the sword? Harry had once attempted counterfeiting swords. In fact, his first impulse when he got his hands on a welding torch was to attach an ordinary blade to a tang signed by a famous swordsmith, so he had an eye. Ishigami’s long sword had the unusual length, smoky temper line and elegant sweep of a Bizen. All Harry could see of the short sword tucked into the colonel’s kimono sash was a worn leather handle. Well, it was good to see these old beauties used instead of being hung on a wall. Think of a sword that had been chopping heads for four hundred years. It took your breath away.

Michiko clapped her hands. “Let’s do some haiku. I’ll go first.”

Haiku, that should pick up the party. Harry thought it had lost its festive air.

Michiko poured more sake, sat back on her heels and began:

“The world was born when the

Goddess Izanami

Spoke the first word.”

“That’s it?” Harry asked.

“That’s it. Five syllables, seven syllables, five. Haiku.”

In spite of themselves, Harry and Ishigami shared a glance of amusement.

“That’s not it,” Harry said. “There’s much more to haiku.”

Ishigami agreed. “Haiku contains a word that evokes the season. You use the word ‘winter,’ or you suggest it with ‘icicles,’ or ‘spring’ or ‘cherry blossoms.’ Your poem doesn’t have either.”

Michiko shrugged in a pretty way. “Because in the beginning there were no seasons.”

“More importantly,” Ishigami said, “you have the story wrong. When the goddess Izanami and the god Izanagi came down from heaven to create the islands of Japan, yes, Izanami spoke first, saying, ‘What a nice man you are.’ But Izanagi was offended, because a man should speak first, so nothing was created. Then Izanagi spoke, saying, ‘What a beautiful lady you are,’ and only then did they create the islands of Japan.”

Michiko pouted. “Like any man. It’s obvious he never would have said a word if she hadn’t gone first. And then he takes the credit.”

“That is why women should never be allowed to write poetry,” Ishigami told Harry. “They want the first word and the last.”

She laughed, and the bells in her hair rang softly. She told Ishigami, “Now you go.”