The Japanese Corpse

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"My real name is hard to remember," the man was saying, "but my foreign friends in Tokyo call me Dorin, why, I don't know. I have been sent to assist you in any possible way."

The commissaris smiled and almost offered his hand, but remembered just in time that he was supposed to bow. He bowed, rather self-consciously. The man had already bowed several times, short quick bows that accompanied his staccato way of speaking. He had a pleasant open face with sharp features and regular white teeth. Most Japanese the commissaris had seen so far, in the plane and at the airport, had irregular teeth, although most were in excellent repair, patched with either gold or silver or some tinny metal.

The commissaris had had a short and pleasant flight from Hong Kong and had spent his few days in the Crown Colony well. He had walked about and done nothing in particular. He had also slept a lot and the new surroundings had made him forget most of the things that annoyed him in Amsterdam, such as the clanging of the streetcar which changed direction just in front of his house, the conversation of his wife's lady friends and police gossip. His rheumatism was still bothering him, but not to the degree he had been forced to get used to in the damp Dutch climate, and he had been able to take long baths, sipping occasionally from a plastic gallon jug of cooled orange juice and smoking his small cigars, of which he had remembered to bring several hundred. The few Chinese he had been in contact with, hotel staff, shopkeepers and waiters, had served him well, and not only in return for the tips he had distributed or the purchases he had made. They had seemed to like the little old man in his shantung suit and some had had time to notice the calmness of his eyes and the strange mixture of rigidity and subtlety that controlled his approach and reaction to whatever surrounded him.

He felt at ease now, sitting back on a plastic chair in a vast air-conditioned coffee shop at Tokyo airport, his small suitcase touching his right foot, sipping iced coffee while he listened to the Japanese with the unlikely nickname, who had appeared from thin air, in the appointed place, exactly as predicted by the precise Mr. Johnson. Dorin, the commissaris thought, a Viking name perhaps. Perhaps the foreign friends this young man mentioned are Scandinavians and perhaps he reminded them of the warriors of those days. There was something of the warrior in the way Dorin carried himself. His body was straight and supple and he was taller than most of the people thronging about their table in the coffee shop. The commissaris noted that Dorin's trousers were tight but the jacket seemed a size too large. A movement of the left arm showed a hard line under the cotton of the jacket. A pistol, most probably, a fairly large pistol, with a long barrel, a weapon that could kill at a distance of say one hundred and fifty feet, under ideal circumstances of course. The commissaris wasn't armed. He wouldn't have been able to carry a gun in an airplane, but he might have been able to obtain a permit to have one in his suitcase. He hadn't bothered.

The CIA had made contact with him in Hong Kong, and he had spoken to Mr. Johnson, once by telephone and once in a museum where they had been admiring the same painting. Mr. Johnson liked working according to the book and his secretive colorless ways had amused the commissaris. In order to please the CIA chief he had visited the company where his cousin worked and he had been briefed on his cousin's routine so that he would be able to use his cover. He hadn't been too diligent about it. The whole scheme was haywire anyway. He knew very well that he was acting as a decoy to lure the yakusa out into the open. All he had to do in Japan was to go about openly soliciting business. He was supposed to be a buyer of stolen art and heroin and a competitor of the yakusa. Would they care about his background? If he could really buy both drugs and art and set the merchandise up for shipment to Holland he would immediately prove that his existence was detrimental to the yakusa and they would try either to kill him or to intimidate him in such a way that he would give up and run. He shook his head. Well, perhaps Johnson was right. If he used the identity of his cousin, a chief clerk of a shipping company in Hong Kong, he might convince the yakusa. A chief clerk can be a member of an illegal organization, especially a chief clerk of a shipping company with connections all over the world.

"Yes," Dorin said, "I trust that you will have a pleasant time in Tokyo. I have been told that there is no particular hurry and Tokyo is an excellent place to get acquainted with Japanese ways. Kobe is a different place, more quiet in a way. Kobe has about one tenth of Tokyo's population. If you can get used to this city you will have no trouble at all in Kobe. Would you like to stay in a Western-style hotel or do you prefer a Japanese inn? Your assistant is now lodged in an inn, but he said he would go to wherever you decide."

"De Gier?" the commissaris asked. "How is he? He must have been here for a few days now, hasn't he?"

"Yes," Dorin said. Dorin's English was fluent but marked by a heavy American accent; the young man had obviously spent many years in the States. His command of the language couldn't just be due to study. "A few days. There's been a little trouble, but everything is all right again. Your assistant is a very able man. He will be an ideal bodyguard and will give you better protection than I could hope to do."

"Trouble?" the commissaris asked and his hands came up in surprise. "What trouble? Surely our friends haven't caught up with us yet, have they? We haven't even started working."

Dorin's head and chest came forward in an embarrassed bow and he almost spilled some of his iced coffee. He rubbed out his cigarette while he tried to think of the right words.

"Trouble," he said hesitatingly. "Hmm, yes. I know most of the details; perhaps you would like to hear them?"

"Please," the commissaris said. "The more I know the better, although he will tell me himself no doubt. I have worked with him for many years. Still, it would be better if I heard the story from another angle as well."

"De Gier-san," Dorin started and the commissaris nodded. He already knew that "san" is a polite addition to everybody's name in Japan.

"De Gier-san was met by me at the airport here five days ago," Dorin said, "and I took him to a Japanese inn on the outskirts of the city. He is a very quiet man, although his English is fluent and we had no trouble understanding each other. I knew he liked judo, so I met him the next morning and took him to my club. We practiced for a few hours. He is very good, you know."

"I know," the commissaris said, "but he could be better. I have often watched him, in play and in earnest. I always thought that he lacks complete control. He is clever and quick, of course, but he overdoes it sometimes."

"I didn't notice that at the time," Dorin said. "My instructors were impressed. 'He is tricky,' they said, but then they weren't used to him of course."

"Tricky," the commissaris repeated. "So what happened?"

"Nothing happened for a few days. I showed him around Tokyo. We spent two evenings on the Ginza; that's a shopping center by day and a pleasure quarter by night. We had some good meals which he enjoyed and he took me to a Chinese restaurant which he had discovered on his own. The people at the inn like him very much. It's only a small inn and it is owned by my uncle. The cat had kittens, and de Gier-san sat up all night, comforting the animal. She is young and it was her first litter. He also played his flute. My aunt plays the piano and they found some pieces they could play together. He is a very industrious and disciplined man, your assistant.

"I found him maps of Kobe and Kyoto, at his request, and he studied the street names and general layouts. He asked me to examine him afterward, and he knew practically everything the maps could tell him. He even memorized the numbers of the streetcars and buses and where they go to, and my aunt translated the notes for him, tourist information-where the stores are and the museums, that sort of thing. He knew it all. Both Kobe and Kyoto are large cities, they each have about a million people; the information he has stored should be very useful. In Kyoto you will find art. I would suggest that I show you some of the famous temples over there so that you can become acquainted with what you are supposed to be interested in. There are also private collections we can see."

"Yes," the commissaris said. "I bought some books on the subject and I have done my homework, but that's a good idea. And what did the sergeant do?"

"We found some priests who will play our game," Dorin continued, sipping his iced coffee. "The buying of stolen art can be set up fairly easily, I think. The heroin connection may be difficult, however. Perhaps we should take the shortest way and talk to the Chinese Communist Commercial Delegation directly. They will pretend they know nothing, but they will send a man around later. We'll have to go to Kobe, I think."

"The sergeant?"

"He has great powers of concentration," Dorm said, and played with his coffee glass, moving it about in a circle on the plastic tabletop; the glass squeaked. "And he is a good companion. But I found him a little unnerving too."

The commissaris sighed. He remembered a saying from a book on Chinese philosophy: Hurry is a fundamental error. He looked at Dorm's hands. Honey-color, not yellow. He wondered why Westerners consider the Japanese a yellow-skinned race.

"Yes?" he asked pleasantly.

"Your sergeant seems to have some rage in him, bottled up and compressed. A great pressure. It shows in his actions. I know that rage, I think. I have some of it myself. You probably know that I work for the Japanese Secret Service. Some of my colleagues show the rage plainly. It is an aggression, white-hot, like melted steel. They are at war, but it isn't clear who the enemy is. Perhaps you know what I mean. I am told you are a police officer and you specialize in crimes of violence."

"Perhaps," the commissaris said. "But go on, please. What happened?"

Dorin's eyes wandered over the commissaris' face. He began to speak hesitantly, leaving pauses. "One evening we went out together, two days ago now. Your assistant likes sake, our Japanese gin. It is often called rice wine, but it is much stronger than wine; it's a spirit, served hot, in small cups. We had a small jug each in a small bar and wandered into the pleasure quarter. We wandered about until we found ourselves in the poorest part of the red light district. It was fairly late and there weren't many people about. In a back alley we suddenly came across three young men who were throwing stones at a cat. Young toughs, leather boys with long hair, you know the type, they are usually drug dealers and pimps, in a small way. Brainless idiots with minds like rats."

The commissaris dipped his neat little head. "Yes, I know the type, it's universal."

"They were throwing stones at a cat. The animal was dying; it had broken its back and blood came from its mouth but it wasn't dead yet. But the three toughs were picking up more stones and laughing. De Gier-san attacked them without any warning. He saw what they were doing and jumped. He was so quick that I couldn't restrain him straightaway. He attacked to kill. I broke his grip and he let go of the first man but twisted himself free and went for the two others. They never had a chance, although I am sure that they were trained street fighters and probably armed with knives. By the time I got hold of the sergeant again and dragged him off, all three of them were down. Somebody must have seen the fight and phoned the police."

"He didn't get himself arrested, did he?" the commissaris asked.

Dorin smiled. "No, no. We got away. We ran in different directions and I lost sight of him. He turned up the next morning at the inn. He did very well really. It's difficult for a gaijin, a foreigner, to hide himself in Japan, but de Gier-san managed. He told me he vaulted over a wall and landed in the little garden of a house. The house belongs to an old lady, a retired prostitute, and she wasn't frightened when she saw him picking his way through her azaleas. He remembered to bow and smile and wish her a good evening and to excuse himself. He has learned two hundred words by heart; my aunt helped him with the pronunciation. He said 'komban-was,' good evening, and 'sumimasen,' excuse me. They had tea together and she put him up for the night."

The commissaris grinned. "Good. The sergeant has a way with women; I am glad he hasn't lost it. He has had a severe personal loss a short time ago, lost both his girlfriend and his cat in a traffic accident. He had a nervous breakdown but he recuperated. Maybe the recent horror of his loss explains his action, but please go on, I am sorry I interrupted you. So he got away."

"Yes. The police arrived quickly. I heard their siren as I ran, but I got to a main thoroughfare and mingled with the crowd. I inquired the next day and found out what had happened to the sergeant's victims. They were taken to the hospital and they are still there. Broken arms, twisted neck, bruised ribs, concussion. He really messed them up."

"Any danger to life?"

"The doctors were worried about the fellow with the twisted neck, but it seems they can fix it. He'll have to wear a support for some months."

The commissaris breathed deeply, turned and waved at the waitress. He ordered more coffee. "Well, well," he said, "I shouldn't have allowed him to be on his own perhaps, or I should have asked the ambassador to let you know about his state of nerves. This shouldn't have happened. You said he attacked them without any warning. He might have killed them if you hadn't been around. I am surprised really. He has been taught two methods of fighting, judo proper and a series of grips and movements which the police have worked out for arresting and holding suspects. But both methods are defensive rather than aggressive."

Dorin sipped his coffee and nodded pensively. "Yes. We are taught aggressive fighting, I am a commando on loan to the Secret Service. Most of the grips I have learned will kill the enemy instantaneously. When I saw the sergeant jump I thought of a commando going in for the attack. There wasn't a moment of hesitation. That's why I made my assumption that he has a rage in him. I didn't know about his dead girlfriend and his cat. The toughs were torturing a cat. I understand the sergeant a little better now."

"A nice round case of attempted manslaughter," the commissaris said, "with extenuating circumstances. In court he would be in a weak position. I don't think a Dutch judge would let him go. Are the police looking for him now?"

"They are," Dorin said, "but they don't have a proper description. There were no witnesses and the victims can't remember any details. They saw that he was a gaijin and tall, and one of them saw his moustache and curly hair, but that is all. I don't think the police will find him, and if they do they'll drop the case once the Service tells them that the sergeant is a friend. I don't think there is anything to worry about. On the contrary, perhaps it is a good thing the sergeant happens to be in this particular state of mind. We are up against a strong and ruthless enemy and we are fairly weak as long as we are under cover. If I could fight them openly I would squash them in no time at all. I can easily muster a force ten or twenty times as strong as all the yakusa combined, but that'll be for later. Now we are just three men, with some anonymous help to back us up. But we can't show our strength for a while."

"And I am not exactly a fighter," the commissaris said smiling. "Yes, I see your point. So you think we shouldn't disturb the sergeant by scolding him?"

"No," Dorin said firmly, but laughed to take the strength out of the word. "The sergeant is fighting heaven, for heaven killed his girlfriend and his cat. It was an accident, you said, so no known power can be blamed. But the sergeant wants to blame something. So far he is blaming heaven, soon he'll be blaming the yakusa."

The commissaris took off his glasses, put them on the table and began to rub his eyes. "I think I would like to go to your uncle's inn now," he said pleasantly. "Do they serve Japanese meals?"

"Breakfast is Western style," Dorin said, and grinned. "Lunch and dinner are Japanese, but you can eat out. De Gier-san usually eats out. Our food can be enjoyed by Westerners, but it takes a little while to acquire the taste. Still, you may enjoy my aunt's cooking; her sukiyaki is famous and you may like it."

He paid the bill and picked up the commissaris' suitcase. As they left two men got up from a nearby table and followed them. When the commissaris got into Dorin's small car he saw the two men get into a gray Datsun.

"We are being followed, I think," he said.

Dorin smiled. "They are ours," he said. "I think my department is exaggerating. I can look after you on my own, especially here where nothing is supposed to happen. In Kobe things may be different. But when my boss heard that you are chief of the Amsterdam CID he became nervous. I am afraid there will be men following you everywhere."

"Is de Gier being followed too?" the commissaris asked, turning around to take another look at the gray Datsun.

"They were behind us in that alley," Dorin said, "but they melted away. They are only supposed to be of service."

"They wouldn't have attacked the police, would they?"

"They might have," Dorin said, turning the wheel to avoid a motorized tricycle carrying a load of rice bags. "They are very dedicated men and their orders are clear enough. But I am glad they didn't have to. I hate explaining difficult situations to the police. They think differently, you know."

"I know," said the commissaris.