The Incense Game

11

Foul smoke from the crematoriums still lingered in the Asakusa Temple district when Sano and his troops arrived there. Once, pilgrims from all over Japan had flocked to Asakusa to worship and to patronize the shops, teahouses, and restaurants, but now people came to gawk at the ruined temples. Monks and priests guarded salvaged religious treasures from looters and lived in a tent camp that occupied the onetime marketplace inside the broken red torii gate.

Sano easily located Mizutani’s neighborhood, an enclave of houses that still stood. Throughout Edo, such enclaves poked up from the flattened ruins around them like anthills. Often there seemed no explicable reason why they’d survived when similar structures had collapsed. Here, two rows of houses faced each other across a narrow road. Their ground floors contained shops in which Sano saw empty bins and shelves. People in the living quarters on the upper stories peeked suspiciously at Sano’s party. Sano had heard that gangs had forced residents out of intact homes and taken them over. The police and army were spread too thin to stop it. In the new Edo, crime flourished.

A gaunt woman beseeched a man who stood outside a house at the center of one row. “Please, just a few coppers.” She held out a child wrapped in a torn quilt. “For my baby.”

The man was about sixty years of age, with the well-fed aspect of a rich merchant. His padded brown coat was made of cotton but looked new and warm. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“My baby is sick. He needs medicine.” The woman’s voice quavered. “Or he’ll die.”

Sano dismounted. He saw that the baby was emaciated, too weak to cry, its eyes bright with fever.

“If I give you my money, how am I going to live?” the merchant said. “Sorry.”

“But I’m your neighbor!” The woman burst into tears. “I took care of your wife when she was sick. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

The man shrugged. “Things are different now. It’s everybody for himself.”

Sano had witnessed similar scenes too many times. Although the earthquake had brought out the best in some people, who generously shared whatever they had with those less fortunate, others hoarded their goods. Perhaps the crisis only served to reinforce one’s natural character.

Weeping, the woman stumbled away. Sano sent his attendant to give her a few coins. She cried, “A thousand thanks, master! May the gods bless you!”

“That was a nice thing to do,” the merchant said. His face and hands had a soft, droopy texture that reminded Sano of a melting candle. A whiff of incense hovered around him. His shrewd eyes noted the Tokugawa crests on Sano’s garments. He seemed to realize he’d made a poor impression on a high government official and hurried to justify himself. “These people would take everything from me if I let them, and then where would I be? They already looted my shop.”

“I won’t criticize you.” Sano didn’t feel in a position to do so. No matter that he tried to help people in need; he, like this man, must look out for his own interests. He wasn’t only investigating the murders to serve justice or prevent a war; he had his family to protect. Sano introduced himself, then said, “I’m looking for Mizutani. Is that you?”

“None other.” The incense master’s smeared features arranged themselves in an expression of wariness combined with eagerness to please. “How may I be of service?”

“Tell me about you and Madam Usugumo.”

“What about her?” That Mizutani didn’t want to talk about her was obvious from the dismay in his eyes. “She’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

“I haven’t seen her since before the earthquake. Her house fell into a crack in the ground.” The concern in Mizutani’s voice didn’t hide his glee. “I assumed she was buried and crushed inside.”

Maybe he knew because he’d poisoned her incense and spied on her while she and her pupils breathed the smoke and died, Sano thought.

Mizutani regarded Sano with sudden apprehension. “She is dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Sano said, “but it wasn’t the earthquake that killed her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let’s have this conversation indoors.” Sano wanted a look around Mizutani’s house.

Although leeriness molded his forehead into a frown, Mizutani ushered Sano inside the shop, which was empty but still smelled strongly of incense. “The looters took my stock and my equipment, you see,” Mizutani complained, leading Sano up the stairs. “Heaven knows what they thought they could do with it. Sell it, I guess. You can’t eat incense or mortars and pestles.” They entered the living quarters. “Please forgive me, it’s a little crowded. I’m storing the things I managed to save. Nobody wants incense lessons these days, but I’ve been lucky to sell incense for funerals.”

The room was jammed with iron trunks, ceramic urns and jars, and a workbench cluttered with tools, dishware, and scales. Small drawers in a cabinet overflowed with pellets and sticks of incense, barks, roots, and granules, pieces of deer antler and rhinoceros horn, and vials of liquid ingredients. The air was so saturated with their sweet, sour, bitter, and animal aromas that Sano could taste them. A crucible on a brazier contained black goo and emitted tarry smoke.

Mizutani cleared a space on the floor for him and Sano to sit. “May I offer you some refreshments?”

“No, thank you, I’ve already eaten.” Everything Mizutani had must be permeated with incense, and Sano thought it wise not to accept food from a suspect in a poisoning.

“How did Usugumo die?” Mizutani asked.

“She was murdered, with poisoned incense. She was playing an incense game with two ladies, her pupils. They died, too.”

Mizutani’s droopy mouth gaped. His teeth were yellow and the gums red, as if from an internal heat that had given his skin its melted-wax appearance. “Do you think I did it? Is that why you’re here?”

“Did you do it?” Sano asked.

“Me? No! Of course not!”

Sano counted too many denials. “Tell me about the arguments you had with Usugumo.”

“Who-” Mizutani pulled a face. “The neighborhood headman must have told you. That busybody.”

“What were the arguments about?”

Mizutani looked around, as if seeking an excuse for not answering. Failing to find one that he thought Sano would accept, he sighed. “She was stealing my pupils. The ungrateful wretch! Everything she had, I gave her!” Mizutani thumped his chest with his loose-fleshed hand. “Do you know what she was before she became an incense teacher?” He didn’t wait for Sano to say no. “She was a courtesan in Yoshiwara, that’s what!”

Yoshiwara was the pleasure quarter, the one place in Edo where prostitution was legal. The prostitutes, called courtesans, plied their trade in pleasure houses owned by merchants and regulated by the government. Samurai were officially banned from Yoshiwara but flocked there nonetheless. So did other men, from all classes, who could afford the high prices of the women, the drink, and the festivities. But the earthquake had wrecked the brothels and teahouses and put at least a temporary end to the glittering, glamorous world of Yoshiwara.

“I started going to Yoshiwara after my wife died. That was eight years ago,” Mizutani said. “I was lonely, I wanted female company, you see. It was fun for a while.” He smiled reminiscently, then sobered. “But it cost too much. Buying the right clothes to wear, the trips there and back in a boat. And the women are so expensive. Not just to sleep with-I had to throw parties for three nights in a row beforehand. Afterward, I had to buy presents for them if I wanted to have them again.”

Yoshiwara had many rituals that customers were required to observe, which added to the mystique of Yoshiwara and made money for the proprietors of brothels, teahouses, and other businesses associated with the trade.

“I had decided to give it up, when I met Usugumo.” Nostalgia softened Mizutani’s tone. “She was beautiful and charming and clever. And in bed-” He gave a lascivious shudder. “I got to thinking, why not buy her freedom? Take her home and have her all to myself, all the time? And never have to spend another copper in Yoshiwara.”

Some courtesans in Yoshiwara were sent to work there as punishment for petty crimes. They could leave when their sentences were finished. Others were sold into prostitution as children by their parents. They could leave after they’d repaid their purchase price to the brothel owner, but even the most popular, highest-priced courtesans could rarely afford to buy their own freedom. The brothels charged them for their clothes, room, and board. Every day they lived in Yoshiwara they went deeper into debt. They depended on patrons to set them free.

“So that’s what I did,” Mizutani said. “Usugumo was a bargain because she was thirty-five, you see. Way past her prime. I figured she would be grateful to me for rescuing her before the brothel threw her out on the street. I thought she would be faithful, not like those young girls, who’ll use a fellow just to get away from Yoshiwara and then run off as soon as they’re out the gate. At first, everything was fine. She looked after me and my house. I taught her about incense. She was good for business. The ladies admired her because she was fashionable and glamorous and could tell them stories about Yoshiwara. The men liked taking lessons from a beautiful woman. This went on until two years ago. Then-”

Mizutani’s face flushed with anger. He looked as if his wick had burned down through his head, glowing red-hot from within. “I went on a trip to buy new incense materials. I was away for three months. When I got back, Usugumo was gone. She didn’t even say good-bye! Just packed her things and moved. I had to ask the neighbors where she’d gone. It turned out she’d saved the allowance I’d been giving her and rented that house in Nihonbashi. She’d also taken my best incense with her. I went there and confronted her and said, ‘How could you treat me like this?’ She said she’d done her duty by staying with me for six years. She said I was an ugly, bossy old miser, and she was setting up her own business so she wouldn’t have to depend on any man ever again.”

Sano had to admire Usugumo’s initiative. “Did you report her to the police?”

“I was too embarrassed. She insulted me and robbed me. And later, took my pupils. They liked her better than me.” Mizutani’s expression went from shame and rancor to fear as he realized how bad he was making himself look. “But I didn’t poison her incense. How could I have? She wouldn’t have let me. I’m innocent.”

“If you’re innocent, then you won’t mind if I search your house.” Sano began opening drawers, digging through the contents.

“Hey!” Mizutani leaped to his feet. “Be careful with those! They’re valuable!”

“I’ll just take them with me, as evidence.” Sano found a cloth sack, dumped in incense sticks and raw ingredients.

“No! Please don’t! That’s my livelihood!”

Sano held up the sack. “Hand over the arsenic, and I’ll leave you this.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Suit yourself.” Sano resumed stuffing the sack.

“All right, all right!” Mizutani scuttled into the adjacent room and returned with a small brown ceramic jar. “Here!”

Sano took the jar, removed the lid, and saw grayish white powder inside.

“But I never put it in incense!” Mizutani said. “I only use it to kill rats!”

Maybe he’d thought Usugumo was one. He’d possessed the means, if not the opportunity, by which to poison the women at the incense game. Sano handed over the sack.

“If you want to find out who did it, you should talk to Korin,” Mizutani said.

It was the classic, obvious way to cast off suspicion-direct it toward someone else. Sano took the bait anyway, because he needed all the leads he could get, especially leads that didn’t point to the Hosokawa clan.

“Who’s Korin?” Sano asked.

“Usugumo’s apprentice,” Mizutani said, relieved that his ploy had succeeded. “He helped her blend her incense. It would have been easier for him to put poison in it than me. Besides, I’m a respectable, law-abiding businessman, whereas Korin is a shady character. He used to work as a tout for the pleasure houses in Yoshiwara. That’s where he and Usugumo met. He also had a side business pimping for nighthawks.” Nighthawks were illegal prostitutes who operated outside the licensed pleasure quarter.

Skeptical, Sano said, “But Usugumo was Korin’s employer. His livelihood depended on her. Why kill her? Wouldn’t she have been worth more to him alive?”

“I once had an apprentice who hated me because I hit him with a stick when he ruined a batch of incense,” Mizutani said. It was common knowledge that apprentices were often worked like slaves and harshly punished by their masters. “That could have happened with Usugumo and Korin. Maybe he wanted to do to her what she did to me: Rob her and run.” Mizutani grinned. “That would have been easier if she was dead.”

“Where is Korin?”

“I asked around. He hasn’t been seen since before the earthquake.”

“He may have died during it,” Sano pointed out.

“He may have.” Mizutani’s grin broadened, showing his red gums and yellow teeth. “But if he murdered those women, wouldn’t that be a good reason for disappearing?”