Kiai! & Mistress of Death Page 10

  "It would seem advantageous not to express surprise at what might develop," he said. "Even a slight reaction, a mere raising of the brow, might not go unobserved."

  "Sensible advice," I agreed, mystified. Apparently I would have to find out for myself, after having been warned to expect something unusual from Pedro.

  Then another matter occurred to me. "Sensei, is it permissible for an occidental to ask a favor?"

  "It is," he said gravely, as I had known he would.

  "I understand that you and Takao are not close."

  "This is true, yet we are not so far apart as it may once have appeared. Takao has had an unfortunate life."

  "Is the distance little enough so that you might be willing to write a letter on his behalf?"

  He looked regretful. "I can not undo the past."

  "No, no," I said quickly. "This does not concern his professional status. It is a private matter, and I speak without his knowledge." (I was, if I stripped away the euphemism, interfering, but I hoped I was doing right.) "It seems his wife is a good woman, but jealous, and she may misconstrue tonight's arrangements. All these young girls... Only a completely reputable sensei conversant with the situation can reassure her, and—"

  Hiroshi smiled. "I shall call upon her personally."

  The music began again and it was necessary to dance. I thanked Hiroshi hastily and got up with Lufita. I was half-pleased to note that a majority of the men were as uncomfortable as I. Makato the Korean had a partner taller than he was, and he looked about ready to lay her out with a karate punch. Whale was too big for his suit, and was literally bursting out. In addition he had a tiny girl perhaps a third his mass. But, surprisingly, he was dancing very well, swinging the girl off her feet with perfect aplomb, and they both seemed to be having fun. I did not see Takao, and presumed he was hiding in the hope that the jealous spirit of his wife would not spy him.

  Meanwhile the copious alcohol was enlivening the party. I heard a commotion and looked over to the great marble staircase that ascended from one side of the ballroom. A man was at the head of ita Japanese, I thought, but I couldn't be sure—urinating copiously in full view.

  Oh-oh. If that was Takao!

  Someone went up to haul him away, getting spattered in the process, and there was an embarrassed chuckle below. But I knew no obscenity had been intended. Orientals are much freer about natural functions, and the copious liquors of a party like this could make them forget. Surely Occidental customs were just as indiscreet in Japan, on occasion.

  "I hope our host did not witness that," a familiar voice murmured beside me.

  "Takao!" I exclaimed, jumping. Then I felt foolish. Of course he wouldn't have...

  "A natural error," he continued. If he had a date, I didn't see her, and perhaps that was just as well. "But a cripple who must use a catheter could take such a display as a very personal affront."

  I hadn't thought of that. How would I feel, in Pedro's position? Then, appropriately, it was my turn to go through the receiving line, for I had not yet met my host.

  Vicente Pedro sat in a wheelchair. He was indeed a handsome man, despite his infirmity, and his arms looked very strong. I knew now that he had a third degree black belt in judo and a fifth degree in karate; possibly he still practiced the latter, breaking boards and striking dummies. He was about forty-five years old, with a dark skin and black wavy hair. He wore a white linen suit with a silk shirt bearing a diamond stickpin and pearl cufflinks. His hands bore large ruby and emerald rings.

  The mayordomo introduced us: "Don Pedro, may I pressent Jason Striker of America. Judo."

  Pedro studied me, frowning. I remembered that he did not like judo, because of his injury, and wanted it to lose. "You had a bit of trouble getting started," he said.

  He must have enjoyed that! "Yes."

  He paused a moment more, then decided I would do. "Striker, my niece, Amalita."

  I turned with a polite smile to acknowledge the girl beside him. I had been so absorbed by Pedro himself that I hadn't noticed her before.

  It was the nymph of the pool.

  "You have met my niece?" Pedro inquired with an edge.

  This was what Hiroshi had tried to warn me about. "I believe I have seen her in your beautiful gardens."

  Now Pedro's gaze was ugly. "My niece does not socialize in the gardens, judoka!"

  "Of course not," I agreed.

  Amalita herself remained demure and silent. She was quite fetching in her formal dress, though it was of a more conservative cut than the standard for the other girls.

  "Come," Pedro said, abruptly wheeling himself forward. He indicated Amalita and me, waving back the others in the receiving line including my own date.

  Amalita walked gracefully beside him while I followed. We traversed the breadth of the ballroom, which was now silent, and entered a side gallery leading to a closed series of rooms. Armed guards saluted Pedro as we entered, then blocked the doorway behind us. That claustrophobic feeling crept up on me again.

  The walls were covered with weapons on display. Not conventional ones, like swords and firearms, but oddities of Oriental martial arts. I had to read the plaques to identify most of them, and couldn't get a proper look because Pedro kept moving along. There is nothing clumsy or slow about a well-managed wheelchair.

  There were nunchakus, like two billy-clubs connected by about nine inches of rope. I saw two little knobbed sticks, about five inches long; the plaque said yawara-jutsu. Apparently they were used to strike at nerve centers. There were several long bows and quarterstaffs, marked respectively kyudo and ho jitsu; also nanriki gusari, a pole with a chain; and several shuriken, which were star-like little throwing missiles with sharp points that, according to the legend, the ninjas of Japan threw with unnerving accuracy through the holes in enemy helmets such as eyeslits. But the main weapon I noticed was also one of the smallest: shukos, or metal tiger claws: barbed bands that fit across the palms, to scratch the victim cruelly or even aid in scaling walls. They could also be used as handguards, making it possible to foil or grip the blade of a striking sword. What a macabre preoccupation our host had!

  We entered another chamber and stopped. This time I did not need to read the plaques. "Japanese katanas!" I exclaimed, amazed.

  "Ah, judoka—you are a collector?" Pedro inquired with alert interest.

  "Hardly! I could not afford the least of these fine swords," I admitted. "But I admire weapons from a distance." And indeed this display of blades was superlative. Many were embossed with jewels or gold and were precious works of art. The hilt of one thirty-inch curved sword was of carved wood in the shape of a wolf 's head, the guard inlaid with silver, and a panel of engraved brass just below the guard. All the swords appeared to be genuine, not replicas—which meant they had been stolen from Japanese temples in the period after Japan's defeat in World War Two, when so many treasures had been looted. There was also a remarkable katanakake, or sword stand, made in the shape of a giant dragonfly, gold lacquer throughout except for green lacquered eyes. It must have been a very wealthy or royal samurai warrior who had originally owned this.

  "And do you by chance know how the best katanas were made?" Pedro inquired.

  "I have only a general notion," I said, wondering why he chose to question me along this line. "In the old days, methods of purifying iron and making steel were at best imperfect. Some pretty bizarre techniques were employed, but apparently they worked, because the steel in such swords is said to be as good as any modern steel, and their cutting edges have never been excelled."

  "How could one tell?" Pedro asked, his eyes bright. I felt nervous, but answered him steadily.

  "They were said to have been tested by allowing a silk handkerchief to fall upon the blade, to see whether the cloth would be cut in half by its own slight weight. It was claimed some swords never grew dull. And they were strong: the true katana had to be capable of cutting off the head of a man at a single stroke. Or to cut a human body in half. Sometimes
two or more bodies were piled on top of a mound of sand, and cut across. I have heard that as many as seven bodies have been severed by one cut."

  Amalita stood silently, showing no interest in either the collection or the discussion; but Pedro's eye had a fanatic gleam. "You are well educated, Striker," he said, leaning forward. "But the cooling do you know about that?"

  "Some were cooled in blood," I said, repelled by his morbidity. He was leading up to something unpleasant.

  "This sword," Pedro said, wheeling up to take a katana in its scabbard from the wall. He drew the blade out slowly, and it was incomplete, snapped off a few inches below the guard. "See, it is broken. Can you imagine its history?"

  So he had a story to tell. "Sir, I can not."

  He held the imperfect weapon and gazed on it as he talked, as though fascinated. "This sword was to be cooled in the living body of the metalworker's worst enemy," he said, glancing sidelong at me. "But the proposed victim comprehended the plot the moment he was captured, and managed to scoop up and swallow a number of large rocks that littered his cell. When the heated blade was plunged into his body, it struck the rocks and broke. It was said that man died laughing!"

  I merely nodded, uncertain how to respond to such a twisted joke.

  Pedro slid the broken sword back into its scabbard and held it out to me. "A gift," he said. "For your prowess and discretion. Draw no blood with it in this household."

  Astonished, I accepted.

  Pedro spun about and wheeled, back toward the dance, Amalita keeping pace. I followed, carrying the precious but awful gift. Was it genuine? Was the story true? Why had he so honored me?

  Or was it an honor?

  The remaining halftime activities seemed routine. The dance ended promptly at eleven, so the relieved contestants could retire at a suitable hour. Next morning Vicente Pedro personally awarded the cash prizes to the members of the martial arts teams in direct proportion to their rankings, though the real payoff would come at the conclusion of the tournament. Judo received twenty-six thousand dollars for its five wins and one loss, as did Karate; Kung-fu and Aikido, with 4-2 records, had twenty-two thousand apiece; Wrestling at 2-4 got fourteen thousand; Thai Kick-boxing, 1-5, ten thousand; and Boxing got just the consolation money, six thousand dollars.

  Mustapha, the American boxer, brooded alone, drinking heavily. I tried to talk to him, thinking he might prefer American company, but he would have none of it. "Just you watch that fuckin' sword, cousin!" he snapped, though I had left the gift katana in my room.

  In the afternoon Pedro staged a jaguar hunt. We all had to wear elaborate hunting costumes: baggy khaki pants, black leather boots, khaki hat, white short-sleeved shirt, and a silk kerchief around the neck to inhibit the dust. Each man also had a canteen of water, for we were warned that although the streams looked clear, some were infected with river flukes—parasites of the liver—so that no natural water could be presumed to be safe for the unaware. Another reminder how difficult it would be to escape this place on foot. We also carried hunting guns of assorted makes, not the single-shot pieces I had supposed true sportsmen employed. Mine was a Belgian semi-automatic rifle, specifically, an FAL semi-auto 7.62mm. I had only a vague notion how to operate it, and no intention of making the attempt.

  And of course we rode sleek steeds, even those of us who had never been near a horse before. I wondered how Pedro himself managed to ride: did he have a special harness, or did he just sit in his wheelchair and laugh at the rest of us? I saw poor Filo Domingo, the Filipino kick-boxer, clutching the swaying saddlehorn and looking seasick. Whale rode beside him, equally miserable, for no boots fit him and he was in heavy socks and low shoes instead, and his horse was none too comfortable, either. I made a gesture signifying a saddle being shoved into a pornographic aperture, and both smiled wistfully.

  But a number were expert horsemen. Pibe Rosario, the brawling Argentine slugger, seemed oafish in combat despite his strength and stamina. But on horseback he was poetry in motion. He must have ridden bareback since early childhood on some great ranch, cowpunching, before departing for the greener pastures of American boxing. Oleg, the Russian sambo champion who had defected to the West during the Olympics (probably explaining why my original East German judo partner had been balked) and was the second wrestler in this tournament, now demonstrated his Kipchak heritage by doing some fine exhibition riding.

  Again I was reminded: it was foolish to judge anyone by parts. The complete man may be a very different person than the part. Meanwhile, I would be exceedingly happy to get off this galumphing brute with my posterior intact. It felt as if the saddle really was being rammed where I had suggested earlier. Every motion of the rein aggravated my bandaged hand, and I was not keen on killing a jaguar anyway, even though I understood it was larger than a lion and far more dangerous. I certainly wouldn't appreciate running barefoot through the forest while a pack of jaguars on horseback chased me with guns.

  As it happened, we did not flush a jaguar. We fanned around the heavy woods along the river bottom and in due course routed out a tapir, and that was deemed sufficient. I lagged back, avoiding participation in the kill; this pointless slaughter was simply not my style.

  Not that I was in shape to kill anything, or even to put up a decent fight. The swaying of the horse brought a headache, with waves of pain reminiscent of my karate knockout going across my head. My clothes were so drenched with sweat it looked as if I had ridden through a shower.

  But better a match with Makato in a cold shower, than this. I began to chuckle involuntarily, and people glanced surreptitiously at me. I couldn't even care.

  Even so, I had a bad moment when I dismounted, for I almost stepped on a snake. Wang Hsu, next to me, saw it before I did. His hand was a blur as he seized it by the tail and snapped it violently in the air, breaking its spine. Yes, it was a poisonous specimen; possibly he had saved my life. Such was my weariness that I hardly cared.

  Attendants led the horses away, while we weary riders walked off some of our stiffness. It was a few minutes' walk through the brush to the cultivated grounds, and we moved along the narrow paths in small bunches.

  Suddenly there was a commotion ahead. A large, hairy, hoofed creature appeared, snorting as it spied us.

  "A peccary!" Makato shouted, grinning. At least that was what I understood; he had not said it in English. Certainly it was a wild pig, and a massive one, with ugly tusks and stiff bristles on its snout. It might have weighed as much as three hundred pounds, though of course I was no judge of hog-flesh.

  Someone raised his rifle, but Makato cried him off. Then he stepped forward.

  The pig seemed to recognize the challenge. Perhaps it was one of the wild animals Pedro seeded on his premises, encouraged to attack men. At any rate, it charged.

  As it came at him, Makato stepped aside and tried to finish it with one blow of his fist. But he was not fast enough; the boar caught his leg with a tusk, ripping the pants and drawing blood. Makato backed up to a large mahogany tree, grinning again.

  He seemed to live for the challenge, the death-combat, in whatever form it offered. He gestured to the peccary obscenely. As the pig charged again, Makato raised his hands linked and brought them down savagely on its back, breaking its spine. The animal thrashed on the ground. Makato delivered a stomping blow that crushed in its skull.

  He had done it all for sport.

  Fortunately nothing big was scheduled on the third day, and we were permitted to recuperate from both the matches and the halftime activities. I slept until almost noon, ate, and meandered about the premises, chatting with people. I was surprised to find several contestants playing musical instruments with considerable skill. Takao and Makato, relaxing Japanese-style in underwear to abate the heat, were playing a bamboo flute and a zither, respectively. Wang Hsu the deadly kung-fu sifu—as deadly to snakes as to men—tapped his metallic nails on a small painted oxhide drum in intricate counterpoint. Mustapha the boxer was rendering what sounded like
Beethoven on a violin. It was a strange orchestra, but oddly evocative, with wind and strings and drumbeat. Three Orientals, all verging on the status of professional killers, and a black American—and as a group they could have performed at a swank night club for more pay than they were earning in prize money here. Strange that they didn't do just that. But then I remembered my own dedication to judo and knew that all else was dross. Money was nothing compared to the lure of true martial art.

  I would have listened longer, but feared I would stare. In another room the second kung-fu disciple, a young and extremely tough Chinese named Pung Lii, was playing the complex Oriental game of Go with Hiroshi. I watched for a time, but could not make head or tail of the large crosshatched board or the meaning of the black and white stones they set down in a pattern I couldn't understand. Both were intent and seemed to find deep satisfaction in the game.

  In the courtyard Pedro himself was supervising entertainment of another nature: cock fighting. I had seen the cockpit before and had not recognized it for what it was. Now I saw the men gathered around, and the two aggressive cocks facing each other, iron spurs attached to their feet. Bets were made, and each bird had its coterie of fans. Busman's holiday, I thought: the martial artists relaxing by watching martial art.

  I returned to the boardgame section; cockfighting was not for me. The boxer Pibe was playing chess with the wrestler Oleg. It appeared to be an involved match, with neither man sure of victory, and I was unable to follow its strategies. These two men seemed to be developing a friendship, perhaps based on their common interests in riding and chess.

  I saw Filo the kick-boxer contemplating another set. "Do you play?" I inquired.

  He smiled comprehending though he did not speak much English. We set up the pieces, which were ornate handcarved ivory. The rook was not the standard castle-shape I was accustomed to, but a complete elephant with a castle-like howdah on top, from the original India game. The pawns were foot soldiers, the bishops real priests, the kings and queens genuine royalty, and the knights armored men on horseback. My sore thighs tensed, and I was almost too bemused to play properly.