down at the polished surface of the table. “Numerous times. And each conversation is worse than the last.”
“She has stopped attending classes,” Ito added. “She hasn’t been in her apartment for weeks.”
I looked from one to the other. “If she’s been out of contact, you can file a missing-person report.” The old man snorted again.
Miyazaki was shaking his head. “She is in sporadic contact with us, Dr. Burke. But we do not know exactly where she is.” He was clearly uncomfortable but didn’t seem eager to explain.
I shrugged. “Cut off the money. That usually brings them back.” Miyazaki’s shoulders slumped. He looked at his father, whose eyes gleamed with anger. This is a conversation they’ve had before.
“I am afraid it is more complicated and delicate a situation than that,” Ito interjected. He paused and looked toward the two other men at the table. “It is a matter of the greatest delicacy and involves the family honor.” And now he seemed reluctant to continue. Miyazaki was silent. His face was stone.
“Honor,” the old man snapped. His Japanese was guttural and harsh, but the word makoto, honor, rang out in the room. “Look at him!” A claw waved in my direction. “What does this one know of honor?” He probably thought a barbarian like me wouldn’t understand him when he spoke Japanese.
I turned my head and stared at him. “Saya wa naku tomo mi wa hikaru,” I spat back at him. He looked shocked. Though the scabbard is lacking, the blade gleams. It’s an old samurai chestnut, and even now I’m amazed I was able to locate it in the dingy, cluttered storage space of my memory, but it seemed to stupefy them all. I was relieved I had come up with a somewhat elegant rejoinder. My original impulse had been to tell him to shove it.
Ito suppressed a wry smile. The old man seemed incensed: probably offended that I had the nerve to speak his language. His mottled face flushed and his lips grew wet with spittle as he spun himself up for a tantrum. Miyazaki rose in alarm. “Ito,” he said, “my father is not well.” He reached the old man and began to wheel him away. “Please continue with our guest,” he commanded over his shoulder as he pushed the old lizard out of the room.
Ito stood watching until the door shut firmly behind them. He sighed. “Perhaps it is just as well.” He moved to the table and sat down, his hands resting on the folders before him. “The rest of the story is not so pleasant. As a father, it would be distressing for Miyazaki-san to share these things about his daughter.”
I raised my eyebrows and sat down. Now at least I was getting somewhere. There was no reason I could see why a highly placed Japanese family would need my help in corralling a wayward daughter. I’ve got a degree in history, not social work. I give lots of advice in the dojo, but most of it is highly specialized: I don’t care about how you feel about your relationship with your father. I am concerned with proper hip placement and correcting that really bad grip you’re using on the sword.
But they knew that. They knew about me: my background, my likes and dislikes. My skills. So there had to be something more to the situation. Something that made them reluctant to go to the authorities.
“So,” I offered. “Let me guess. Drugs?”
Ito nodded solemnly. “In part. What you call party drugs. Ecstasy. Crystal meth.”
“Some party.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “And there is more.” He fished around in his files and spread out a series of black and white surveillance shots: Chie with an Asian man in wraparound sunglasses and spiky hair. Another picture of the same man without the shades, lighting a cigarette outside a bar. “Lim Ki-whan,” Ito said. “Her boyfriend.” He tried to be dispassionate, but I could hear the note of disdain creeping into his voice. The name was Korean, and even today there is a deep chauvinism among some Japanese regarding the Koreans. For a family like the Miyazaki, it would have been bad enough to have a daughter wander off the reservation in America. To do it with a Korean would be beyond the pale.
“He’s her drug connection as well, I suppose?” Ito nodded in response. “Love is a wonderful thing,” I told him.
He didn’t think I was funny. He was probably right.
“There is more, Dr. Burke. Chie has a troubled psychological profile … issues with behavior. Issues with authority.” Don’t we all. He rustled through some papers, dense with text. “And sex.” He paused for a moment, clearly uncomfortable.
This was curious. Japanese attitudes regarding sexual matters are considerably different than traditional Western ones. The same culture that has elevated tea making to an art form is also the largest producer of pornographic comics in the world. So I waited for Ito to say more. He sat there, arranging and rearranging the order of the folders in front of him. Finally, he simply slipped one folder across the table in front of me. He shrugged. “There. Please take a look.”
There were a great many photos of Miyazaki Chie with a variety of men. The pictures seemed to have been carefully posed to be both sexually graphic and to ensure she could be clearly identified. Many times, she was looking right at the camera, her eyes slightly unfocused, and I assumed that was from the drugs. But you clearly got the sense that she knew she was being photographed. That she knew someone was going to be looking at her in these photos. And that she liked it. I shuffled through the collection quickly and wondered once more at the human capacity for making something potentially good so deeply creepy.
Ito watched me, waiting for a comment.
“I see she’s gotten some tattoos as well,” I offered.
“She is a nymphomaniac,” he said curtly. “And a drug user.” His voice took on heat and speed as he continued. “She is the daughter of one of the most respected families in Japan and she is being exploited by this Korean thug.”
There are lots of ways you could exploit someone, so I pressed for more information. “Has he turned her out?” I said.
Ito cocked his head, taking a moment to make a mental translation of the phrase. “Ah, has he made her a prostitute? No, Dr. Burke.” He reached over and took possession of the photos, sliding the folder beneath the others.
I nodded. “At least there’s that.” But Ito didn’t seem comforted.
“She is with him, we believe. But we do not know where. We want her back, Dr. Burke.”
“I can understand that, Ito-san, but I don’t see why you need me to help.”
Ito rubbed his hands together as if he were thinking about using them to mangle Chie’s boyfriend. It seemed to calm him. He peered up at me. “You have resources that could help us find him.”
“True.” My brother had been a cop for twenty years before he retired to set up a security consulting firm. He’s widely connected, deeply cranky, and very busy. But he could probably find Chie in about twenty-four hours if I asked for his help. “But there are many people in New York who could help you do this,” I told him.
Ito nodded. “Just so. But as we have stated, there are complicating factors. The drugs. The prominence of the family. We would insist on the utmost discretion.”
I thought of the pictures I had just seen. “That would be refreshing.”
“We know of your past service to the Kunaicho,”
